This paper addresses the intergeneration transmission of education and investigates the extent to which early school leaving (at age 16) may be due to variations in permanent income, parental education levels, and shocks to income at this age. Least squares estimation reveals conventional...

Cobb Douglas production function parameters are not identified from cross-section variation when inputs are perfectly flexible and chosen optimally, and input prices are common to all firms. We consider the role of adjustment costs for inputs in identifying these parameters in this context. The...

This paper develops an approach to studying how bias in favor of one party due to the pattern of electoral districting affects policy choice. We tie a commonly used measure of electoral bias to the theory of party competition and show how this affects party strategy in theory. The usefulness of...

We show that older male pensioners have substantially lower incomes than younger pensioners. There are a number of possible reasons for this including under-indexation of private pensions and the running down of income-producing assets. In fact we find that cohort differences more than account...

This paper uses cross section data to investigate whether the returns to education vary with the level of ability. Using a measure of cognitive ability based on tests taken at ages 7 and 11 we find, unlike most of the existing literature, clear evidence that the return to schooling is lower for...

We study optimal taxation in the general extensive model: the only decision of the participants in the economy is to choose between working (full time) or staying inactive. People differ in their productivities and in other features which determine their work opportunity costs. The qualitative...

<p><p><p>This paper, written at the request of the Economic Council of Sweden, presents a tour of welfare reform in the UK since the last change of government, summarising the most important changes in active labour market policies, and in measures intended to strengthen financial incentives to work. It...</p></p></p>

This paper considers data quality issues for the analysis of consumption inequality exploiting two complementary datasets from the Consumer Expenditure Survey for the United States. The Interview sample follows survey households over four calendar quarters and consists of retrospectively asked...

In this paper we study the sources of wage growth. We identify the contribution to such growth of general, sector specific and firm specific human capital. Our results are interpretable within the context of a model where the returns to human capital may be heterogeneous and where firms may...