We analyse how progressive taxation and education subsidies affect schooling decisions when the returns to education are stochastic. We use the theory of real options to solve the problem of education choice in a dynamic stochastic model. We show that education attainment will be an increasing...

This paper models an industrial revolution as a qualitative transition from a world where innovation is infrequent and haphazard to one where it is continuous and systematic. Pre-industrial innovation is treated as a social process where an individual's effectiveness as an innovator depends on...

This paper extends Che and Gale (1998) by allowing the incumbent politician to have a preference for the policy position of one of the lobbyists. The effect of a contribution cap is analyzed where two lobbyists contest for a political prize. The cap always helps the lobbyist whose policy...

This paper uses duration analysis to investigate factors influencing starting and quitting smoking, in particular the role of tobacco taxes. Applying a variety of parametric duration models, including a split population model, to a sample of Irish women, it finds mixed results regarding the...

This paper analyses inequality in Ireland via a decomposition of the Gini coefficient by source of income. Using data from the Irish Household Budget Survey of 1987, seventeen components of disposable income are identified and their contribution to inequality evaluated. Their contribution to...

This paper calculates the concentration index for self-assessed health for a sample of Irish women. It then decomposes the index to investigate the sources of this inequality using both a health production function and reduced form approach. Using the health production function approach it finds...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the author acquired about 30,000 letters written mainly in the 1840s. These pertained to estates throughout Ireland managed by James Robert Stewart and Joseph Kincaid, hereafter denoted SK. Until the letters - called the SK correspondence in what follows -...

This paper analyses decisions regarding smoking and drinking for a sample of Irish women. Double-hurdle models are estimated to determine whether decisions to smoke/drink are made independently of how much to smoke/drink. Given the potential complementarities between smoking and drinking a model...