This paper examines the performance of the JTPA performance system, a widely emulated model for inducing efficiency in government organizations. We present a model of how performance incentives may distort bureaucratic decisions. We define cream skimming within the model. Two major empirical...

It is widely perceived that globalization is a threat to tax financed public sector activities. The argument is that public activities (public consumption and transfers) financed by income taxes may distort labour markets and cause higher wages and thus a loss of competitiveness. If the...

This interdisciplinary paper explains how mathematical techniques of stochastic optimal control can be applied to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Why did the financial markets fail to anticipate the recent debt crisis, despite the large literature in mathematical finance concerning optimal...

An important puzzle in corporate taxation is that effective tax rates have fallen significantly while tax revenue has simultaneously risen in most countries. Moreover, the gross profitability of firms seems to be lower in high-tax countries, even though standard models of international...

This paper is focused on couple households where the wife is the main earner. The economic literature on this subject is particularly scant. According to our estimates, the wife was the main earner in one of every six couple households in France in 2002, including wife-sole-earner households....

The paper re-examines existing estimators for the panel data fixed effects ordered logit model, proposes a new one, and studies the sampling properties of these estimators in a series of Monte Carlo simulations. There are two main findings. First, we show that some of the estimators used in the...

This paper assesses the causes and costs of the Russian banking crisis, the lending behavior of Russian banks, and it evaluates the authorities' response to the crisis. There appears to be evidence for conservative lending behavior on the part of Russian banks. The paper also searches for ways...

The present paper deals with the distinction between the models of the managed and entrepreneurial economies. It explains why the model of the entrepreneurial economy may be a better frame of reference than the model of the managed economy in the contemporary, developed economies. This is done...