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Working Paper
Majority Voting in a Model of Means Testing
We study a model of endogenous means testing where households differ in their income and where the in-kind transfer received by each household declines with income. Majority voting determines the two dimensions of public policy: the size of the welfare program and the means-testing rate. We establish the existence of a sequential majority voting equilibrium and show that the means-testing rate increases with the size of the program but the fraction and the identity of the households receiving the transfers are independent of the program size. Furthermore, the set of subsidy recipients does ...
Discussion Paper
Endogenous expenditures on public schools and persistent growth
In this paper, we present a model where individuals accumulate human capital through the formal schooling. To take into account the large involvement of the public sector in education we introduce a government which collects taxes from households and provides inputs to the learning technology. In our model the public expenditures on schools and growth rates are determined endogenously. Under plausible restrictions on the parameters of our model, we show that the predictions of our model qualitatively match the observations on per capita income, years of schooling, public expenditures on ...
Working Paper
Why do education vouchers fail at the ballot box?
We compare a uniform voucher regime against the status quo mix of public and private education, focusing on the distribution of welfare gains and losses across house- holds by income. We argue that the topping-up option available under uniform vouchers is not sufficiently valuable for the poorer households, so the voucher regime is defeated at the polls. Our result depends critically on the opting-out feature in the current system.
Working Paper
Majority Voting in a Model of Means Testing
We study a model of endogenous means testing where households differ in their income and where the in-kind transfer received by each household declines with income. Majority voting determines the two dimensions of public policy: the size of the welfare program and the means-testing rate. We establish the existence of a sequential majority voting equilibrium and show that the means-testing rate increases with the size of the program but the fraction and the identity of the households receiving the transfers are independent of the program size. Furthermore, the set of subsidy recipients does ...