This paper examines labor's share of income in Hungary. We find that the trend in labor's share is substantially influenced by the treatment of self-employment; self-employment has declined significantly because of both shifts across sectors and reductions within sectors. Hungary's labor share...

On April 7, 2000, President Clinton signed into law the "Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act of 2000," which eliminated the unpopular earnings test that applied to those over the Social Security normal age of retirement (currently age 65). The earnings test, a version of which still applies to...

Empirical studies of per capita income convergence across countries have proliferated in the past decade. The purpose of this paper is to build upon that literature by examining demographic, rather than economic, convergence. In this paper, we examine whether fertility rates have been converging...

The authors take issue with the practice of cross-testing defined contribution plans, and especially with new comparability plans. Cross-testing offers firms a method for making larger contributions for highly paid employees, so long as they are older than other employees participating in a...

Each year the federal individual income tax delivers over $500 billion worth of incentives intended to encourage socially beneficial activities. Despite their efficiency rationale and substantial price tag, relatively little attention has been paid to the question of what is the most efficient...

All of the provisions of the landmark tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are scheduled to expire by the end of 2010. This paper analyzes the economic effects of making the tax cuts permanent. We describe the recent tax cuts and the proposals to make them permanent, and explore the consequences of...

Tax cuts are not free; they must be financed with some combination of tax increases or spending cuts. The central goal of this paper is to apply this standard insight from public finance to analysis of the distributional effects of making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. We estimate not only...