Whereas the economics discipline possesses a highly refined theoretical apparatus to analyze the effects of government behaviour on the economy, it has not (yet) managed to fully develop a positively formulated "economic theory of politics" that would permit the integration of the...

Child poverty is much lower in France than in the United States, although both countries have a similar proportion of births to unmarried mothers, and minority populations of comparable size. The differing poverty rates reflect differences in their programs of support for families with children,...

This paper concerns two issues related to optimal income taxation. First, we show how the labor income tax and the old age pension system interact in the optimal tax and expenditure structure. Second, we derive marginal capital income tax rates for high-ability and low-ability working...

To date, prices of gas and other energy used by households in Ukraine have been generously subsidized by the Government. However, suppressed energy prices lead to excessive use of gas and an inefficient level of investment into energy savings. In addition, Ukraine’s dependence on imported gas...

The aim of this paper is to explain why a low and declining saving rate should be a problem in a world of free capital flows and increasing wealth. In Italy consumer households’ saving have been the main driver of economic stability and growth, funding investments and public debt, and despite...

This paper studies the effect of welfare programs on work incentives and the labor supply of adults in developing countries. The document builds on the experimental evaluations of three programs implemented in rural areas: Mexico’s PROGRESA, Nicaragua’s Red de Protección Social (RPS) and...

This paper provides a survey of recent developments, in France, in microsimulation models aiming at general analysis of the tax-benefit system. Otherwise, it does not deal with more specifics models related on sectorial analysis. In a first part, we describe microsimulation methods and theirs...

Data from 76 experimental welfare-to-work programs conducted in the United States between 1983 and 1998 are used to investigate whether the impacts of such programs on employment had been improving over time and whether specific program features influencing such changes can be identified. Over...

Islamic presence is intended to meet all the demands of life (shumūl al-hayāh). In the economic sphere, Islam set rules comprehensively about the relationship between religion and economy, both should go hand in hand, such as philanthropy actions. Since the early days, philanthropy has become...

This paper proposes a measure of the contribution of unequal opportunities to earnings inequality. Drawing on the distinction between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ variables in John Roemer’s work on equality of opportunity, we associate inequality of opportunities with five observed...