I explore alternative central bank policies for liquidity provision in a model of payments. I use a mechanism design approach so that agents’ incentives to default are explicit and contingent on the credit policy designed. In the first policy, the central bank invests in costly enforcement and charges an interest rate to recover costs. I show that the second-best solution is not distortionary. ...

We develop a model of education where individuals face educational risk. Successfully entering the skilled labor sector depends on individual effort in education and public resources, but educational risk still causes (income) inequality. We show that in a Second-best setting improving quality of education, i.e., the probability of success, by public funding of the educational sector matters mo...

The macroeconomic rationale for aid relates to its ability to supplement savings, foreign exchange and government revenue, thus contributing to growth. This processes presumes a simple Harrod-Domar context in which growth is driven by physical capital formation. However, the macroeconomic reality of aid is more complicated. Three areas of complication are discussed: (i) the effects of aid on fi...

We study the political economy of social insurance with double heterogeneity of voters (i.e., different income and risk levels). Social insurance is financed through distortionary taxation and redistributes across income and risks. Individuals vote over the extent of social insurance, which they can complement on the private market. Private insurance suffers from adverse selection which results...

This paper uses a numerical general equilibrium model to evaluate the welfare impacts of alternative agri-environmental policies in an open economy while recognizing the presence of distortionary agricultural support subsidies and factor income taxes. In this context, the paper indicates that a revenue-neutral budget reform, which cuts all distortionary agricultural support subsidies and pays r...

BACKGROUND Native American tribes, as sovereign nations, are exempt from state tobacco excise taxation, and self-govern on-reservation activity in the USA. Under Federal law, state excise taxes are owed by non-members purchasing tobacco on tribal land, but states are limited in how they enforce or collect these taxes. This study highlights the various policy approaches that states have taken to...

In this paper we analyse the stabilisation properties of distortionary taxes in a New Keynesian model with overlapping generations of finitely-lived consumers. In this framework, government debt is part of net wealth and this adds a number of interesting channels through which fiscal policy could affect output and inflation. Output volatility, in presence of technology shocks, is not substantia...

there is always a considerable difference between the corporate performance and the tax levy that is identified by the taxation authorities which has become a common practice. this fact has led to no fairness among taxpayers, a fact that influences the horizontal and vertical sides of equity. horizontal equity is created when people feel the benefits of the tax gain that is proportional to the ...