This paper shows that a policy maker needs only two types of information to set the optimal income tax rate at the top: the compensated elasticity of labor supply and the shape of income distribution. Unlike recent results in the literature our paper shows that income effects are immaterial for...

This paper uses sibling correlations in schooling to measure differences in intergenerational mobility for 16 Latin American countries. The results indicate that there are substantial differences in mobility within Latin America. On the whole, social mobility increases with schooling and income...

This study presents three complementary approaches exploring the main factors behind the steep decline in the participation rate of Israeli men in the past three decades. Two factors stand out in explaining the decline in participation rate: increases in the share of Orthodox Jews along with...

This study shows that Israel's current low level of public expenditure has resulted in a severe decrease in the level of public services provided to Israel's citizens, even beyond the need to finance Israel's exceptional defense expenditure. The study shows a decrease in expenditure on school...

In this paper, social mobility is measured by looking at the extent to which family background determines socioeconomic success. Roughly speaking, social mobility can be measure by means of two distinct types of correlations: intergenerational correlations and sibling correlations

The model presented in the paper generates important implications concerning how the allocation of resources between children varies across income groups. In the model, poor and middle-income families tend to channel their resources into a few children whereas rich families (and perhaps very...

Using a sample of OECD countries, this paper finds that while fiscal rules succeeded in reducing total government expenditures and budget deficits in the medium term, they significantly affected the composition of government expenditure: the ratio of social transfers to government consumption...

This paper examines whether policymakers, economists at the Israeli Finance Ministry, act in their personal pension decisions in accordance with the rational behaviour assumptions underlying the pension policies they advance. We find that while economists' decisions regarding three other...

This paper reveals a noticeable difference between a high degree of progressivity of income-related local property tax relief versus the proportional or regressive incidence of recognition tax relief. Recognition tax relief is tax relief given to specified social sectors which recognizes either...