We study an income tax enforcement problem using a principal agent model where the government sets the tax and inspection functions. These functions are announced to the agents and there is no commitment problem. The penalty function for dishonest taxpayers is given exogenously and must satisfy...

We study the existence of cost monotonic selections of the core in economies with several public goods. Under quasilinear utilities there is a cost inonotonic core selection mechanism if and only if the agents order the bundles of public goods equally. If this is indeed the case, any such...

We study the information contained in surnames on the socioeconomic status of people in Spain. We find that people bearing uncommon surnames tend to enjoy a higher socioeconomic status than people bearing more common surnames. This bias is statistically very significant and robust to different...

We propose a two-region two-sector model of uneven development, where technological change benefits either the lagging or the leading region. In this framework inter-regional transfers may lead to persistent underdevelopment; by raising wages without changing productivity, transfers reduce the...

We propose a two-region two-sector model of uneven development, where technological change benefits either the lagging or the leading region. In this framework interregional transfers may lead to persistent underdevelopment; by raising wages, transfers reduce the chance of the backward region...