Unlike the previous literature on mass policy feedback, the present paper argues that a negative message embodied in public policy may foster or dampen political participation depending on social group affiliation. The policy change we use to examine the effect of biased policy (a negative...

This paper examines whether policymakers, economists at the Israeli Finance Ministry, act in their personal pension decisions in accordance with the rational behaviour assumptions underlying the pension policies they advance. We find that while economists' decisions regarding three other...

The paper proposes a simple and innovative methodology for measuring the incidence of gambling expenditure in countries for which household survey data is unavailable or unreliable. A first application of this methodology is presented by merging data on the geographical location of gambling...

This paper develops a simple framework to examine the budgetary implications of monetary policy measures. It further outlines, using this framework, the various channels of influence that tight monetary policy may have on the budget deficit. The cumulative effect might be quantitatively large...

The level of disposable income inequality in Israel has increased noticeably since the mid-1980s and today it is above most developed countries. In contrast, market income inequality, which hit a record level in 2002, has reversed its course since then and has shown a sharp decline in subsequent...

This work finds for the first time an almost continuous trend, as of the mid-1990s, in which the income gap between households of the two major ethnic groups in Israel (European/American versus Asian/African descent) has been reduced. In 2011 the net income gap was 27 percent, whereas in the...

This paper offers a complementary empirical approach that might be better suited to identify the extent of political favoritism in a multi-decision-maker institution than the standard identification strategy. The typical diff-in-diff identification strategy to estimate political favoritism,...

The goal of this research is to explore whether actual lottery revenues are sensitive to scarcity, as measured by intra-monthly variation in financial resources. Exogenous paydays of social security benefits are employed to generate the intra-monthly variation in financial resources. Using two...

This paper reveals a noticeable difference between a high degree of progressivity of income-related local property tax relief versus the proportional or regressive incidence of recognition tax relief. Recognition tax relief is tax relief given to specified social sectors which recognizes either...