This paper studies optimal unemployment benefit levels and optimal proportional income tax rates over the business cycle. Previous research suggests that policy makers should make unemployment insurance (UI) dependent on the business cycle because the UI system can be used to smooth consumption...

We study the recruitment behavior of Swedish employers using data from a stated choice experiment. In the experiment, the employers are first asked to describe an employee who recently and voluntarily left the firm, and then to choose between two hypothetical applicants to invite to a job...

The business cycle is likely to be of importance for self-employment rates. When the economy is growing, business opportunities open up and encourage the set-up of new firms. In downturns, self-employment may be a way to avoid unemployment. The strength of these pull and push factors may depend...

We investigate the effects on health at birth of a shock generated by a major (25%) and unexpected wage cut austerity measure that affected all public sector employees in Romania in 2010. Our findings suggest an overall improvement in health at birth for boys exposed to the shock in early...

This paper analyzes the evolution of tax progressivity in Sweden from both annual and lifetime perspectives.Using a rich micro panel with administrative records of incomes, taxes and benefits over theperiod 1968–2009, we calculate tax rates across the income distribution accounting for...

Both practitioners and academics posit that microfinance organizations face a tradeoff between financial performance and outreach. We designed a randomized controlled trial of a transitory interest rate subsidy to investigate this tradeoff. We find that subsidized credit substantially increases...

This paper studies the impact of permanent and transitory shocks to income on parental investments in children. We use panel data on family income, and an index of investments in children in time and goods, from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Consistent with the...

We compare the income and wage trajectories of women in rela- tion to their male partners before and after parenthood. Focusing on the within-couple gap allows us to control for both observed and unobserved attributes of the spouse and to estimate both short- and long-term eects of entering...

The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in research on various labor market institutions. This paper offers a brief overview and discussion of research on the labor market impacts of minimum wages (MW), unemployment insurance (UI), and employment protection legislation (EPL). It is...

In many countries welfare services that traditionally have been provided by the public sector are being contracted out to private providers. But are private contractors better at providing these services? We use a randomized experiment to empirically assess the effectiveness of contracting out...