The standard labor-supply literature typically assumes that the labor supply response to wage increases is the same as that for equivalent wage decreases. However, evidence from the behavioral-economics literature suggests that people are loss averse and thus perceive losses differently than...

This essay demonstrates the full range and potential contributions economists have to offer many academic disciplines. We argue that in the absence of a formula which identifies the length of the hypotenuse on a right-triangle, known today as the Pythagorean theorem, economists would have...

This paper examines whether income inequality is affected by the structural progressivity of national income tax systems. Using detailed personal income tax schedules for a large panel of countries, we develop and estimate comprehensive, time-varying measures of structural progressivity of...

Although a large literature has studied discrimination in the labor market, there is little evidence on sex- and race-based discrimination of employees against (potential) employers. We implement a randomized experiment in an online labor market to contribute to this gap in the literature. In...

We study differences between actual and reported net income inequality in a laboratory experiment where participants first supply effort and then make a tax reporting decision. We show that for a group with relatively homogeneous levels of true gross income, 1) inequality in reported net incomes...

The road mileage user-fee is viewed as a promising alternative to the fuel tax, which in recent years has proven to be an inadequate means of financing road infrastructure. Public opposition is often thought to be a barrier to the political feasibility of the road mileage user-fee, but there has...

This paper provides evidence of efficient taxation of groups with heterogeneous levels of ‘tax morale'. We set up an optimal income tax model where high tax morale implies a high subjective cost of evading taxes. The model predicts that ‘nice guys finish last': groups with higher tax morale...