Three important features of Indian labor markets enduringly coexist: rent-seeking, occupational immobility, and caste. These facts are puzzling, given theories that predict static, equilibrium social inequality without conflict. Our model explains these facts as an equilibrium outcome. Some...

Growing evidence suggests that many people are surprisingly responsive to unconventional policy tools, such as defaults or choice-framing, yet unresponsive to conventional ones, such as taxes or subsidies. This paper studies the optimal choice of policy instrument in settings characterized by...

A growing literature documents links between early-life health and human capital, and between human capital and adult wages. Although most of this literature has focused on developed countries, economists have hypothesized that effects of early-life health on adult economic outcomes could be...

The large size and rate of growth of the US Disability Insurance (DI) system makes it important to understand the factors that influence the decision to apply for DI, and one empirically relevant factor is the availability and generosity of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits. UI's impact on DI...

The standard economic view of the personal income tax is that it is a distortionary way of raising revenue which nonetheless has value because of its desirable effects on the distribution of income. However, when wages deviate from marginal product, the laissez-faire (no-tax) equilibrium is...

A large body of research focuses on two important rationales for government subsidies to college students: positive fiscal externalities from a larger tax base, and liquidity constraints among students. This paper provides a first attempt to gauge the relative importance of these mechanisms. I...

A common finding of the optimal unemployment insurance literature is that the optimal replacement rate is around 50%; however, a key assumption is that UI is the only government spending activity. I show that optimal UI levels are dramatically reduced by the fact that UI is a small part of...

The overconsumption of sugar is a significant problem in many jurisdictions, and one possible method to remedy this problem is the taxation of sugarsweetened beverages (SSBs). To be able to implement an optimal tax, it is important to know the preferences and price sensitivity of consumers. This...