Public Insurance in Fiscal Federations : Evidence from the USA

In the division of scal responsibilities between central and local governments, it is usually argued that income insurance and nequality should be dealt with by the central government. This paper explores the extent to which the US federal tax and transfer system is able to provide uniform social insurance to a prototype family in diferent states, given variations in state tax and transfer policies. We simulate the combined response of federal and state taxes and transfers to a negative pre-tax income shock, and compare the results for di erent states. We nd large di erences in the level of insurance experienced by households in diferent states, particularly for low income households, and that these diferences are mostly driven by state policies

Catchment areas and access to better schools

We compare popular school choice mechanisms in terms of children's access to better schools (ABS) than their catchment area school, in districts with school stratification and where priority is given for residence in the catchment area of the school. In a large market model with two good schools and one bad school, we calculate worst-case and best-case bounds of the Boston Mechanism (BM). We find that both BM and DA convey a non-negligible risk that catchment area priority fully determines the final assignment regardless parents' preferences. Top-Trading Cycles is an alternative that provides more access to better schools than DA

Fiscal Consolidation in a Low-Inflation Environment : Pay Cuts versus Lost Jobs

We construct a model of a monetary union to study fiscal consolidation in the periphery of the euro area, through cuts in public sector wages or hiring when the nominal interest rate is constrained at its lower bound. Consolidation induces a positive wealth effect that increases demand, as well as a reallocation of workers towards the private sector, which together boost private activity. However, in a low-inflation environment, demand is suppressed and the private sector is not able to absorb the additional workers. Comparing the two instruments, cuts in public hiring increase unemployment persistently in this environment, while wage cuts can reduce it. Regions with higher mobility of labor between the two sectors are able to consolidate more effectively. Price flexibility is also key at the zero lower bound: for a higher degree of price rigidity in the periphery, consolidation becomes harder to achieve. Consolidations can be self-defeating when the public good is productive

On the invariance of the set of core matchings with respect to preference profiles

We consider the general many-to-one matching model with ordinal preferences and give a procedure to partition the set of preference pro.les into subsets with the property that all preference pro.les in the same subset have the same Core. We also show how to identify a pro.le of (incomplete) binary relations containing the minimal information needed to generate as strict extensions all the (complete) preference pro.les with the same Core. This is important for applications since it reduces the amount of information that agents have to reveal about their preference relations to centralized Core matching mechanisms; moreover, this reduction is maximal

The Division problem under constraints

The division problem under constraints consists of allocating a given amount of an homogeneous and perfectly divisible good among a subset of agents with single- peaked preferences on an exogenously given interval of feasible allotments. We char- acterize axiomatically the family of extended uniform rules proposed to solve the division problem under constraints. Rules in this family extend the uniform rule used to solve the classical division problem without constraints. We show that the fam- ily of all extended uniform rules coincides with the set of rules satisfying efficiency, strategy-proofness, equal treatment of equals, bound monotonicity, consistency, and independence of irrelevant coalitions

Pressupost del 2015-2016 del Board of Trustees Meeting de la Fundació Barcelona Graduate School of Economics

Aprovat pel Patronat de la Fundació de 10-11-201

Pressupost del 2012-2013 de la Fundació Barcelona Graduate School of Economics

Aprovat pel Patronat de la Fundació de 23-11-201

Pressupost del 2013-2014 de la Fundació Barcelona Graduate School of Economics

Aprovat pel Patronat de la Fundació de 08-11-201

Pressupost del 2011-2012 de la Fundació Barcelona Graduate School of Economics

Aprovat pel Patronat de la Fundació de 25-11-201