This paper develops a new theory of international specialization that tractably combines all aspects of North-North and North-South trade into one model. The new theory also provides an alternative explana- tion for many other well-established facts, most notably the âWashington applesâ...

This paper analyzes the effects of personal income taxation on earnings, formality and business organization choices of agents. I use a tax reform introduced in Pakistan in 2009, which increased taxation of partnership firms substantially relative to other unincorporated firms, as a natural...

In politically competitive jurisdictions, there can be strong electoral incentives to underfund public pensions in order to keep current taxes low. I examine this hypothesis using panel data for 2,000 municipal pension plans from Pennsylvania. The results suggest that as a municipality becomes...

My paper is the first to provide long-run evidence on the dynamic effects of supply and demand shocks on mineral commodity prices. I assemble and analyze a new data set of prices and production levels of copper, lead, tin, zinc, and crude oil from 1840 to 2010. Price fluctuations are primarily...

Is the difficulty of purchasing health insurance as an individual or small business a major barrier to entrepreneurship in the United States? I answer this question by taking advantage of the natural experiment provided by the Affordable Care Actâs dependent coverage mandate, which allowed many...

Abstract: This paper uses a selection of fiscal vector autoregression models to identify the effect of fiscal policy shocks on the private sectorâs balance sheet using the Flow of Funds. As well, I examine the response of treasury interest rates, the Federal Funds rate and the assets of the...

This technical paper highlights the substantive and notable Market Risk difference among Islamic and Conventional Securities with respect to their Actual Price Volatility Risk Characteristics in context of Listed Pakistani Capital Markets. The data analyzes market risk of each listed security...

This paper estimates the effect of the charitable contribution deduction on public charities' donation revenue. The effect is identified by exploiting variation in the change in tax incentives across US states following the federal Tax Reform Act of 1986. At the margin, a one percent increase in...

The reaction coefficients of expected inflations and output gaps in the forecast-based monetary policy reaction function may be merely weakly …identified when the smoothing coefficient is close to unity and the nominal interest rates are highly persistent. In this paper we modify the method...

Many industries have two sales stages: the primary market and the aftermarket. Existing research shows consumers are routinely unaware of aftermarkets (Cruickshank, 2000; Hall, 2003); and due to legal or structural restrictions, firms commonly have monopoly power (Borenstein et al., 2000; Adelmann,...