The Welfare Enhancing Effects of a Selfish Government in the Presence of Uninsurable, Idiosyncratic Risk

This paper poses the following question: Is it possible to improve welfare by increasing taxes and throwing away the revenues? This paper demonstrates that the answer to this question is “yes.” We show that there may be welfare gains from taxing capital income even when the additional capital income tax revenues are wasted or consumed by a selfish government. Previous literature has assumed that government expenditures are exogenous or productive, or allowed for redistribution of tax revenue either via lump-sum transfers, unemployment compensation or other redistributive schemes. In our model a selfish government taxes capital above a given threshold and then consumes the proceeds. This raises the before-tax real return on capital and and thereby enhances the ability of agents to self-insure when they are long-term unemployed and have low savings. Since all agents have positive probability of finding themselves in that state there are cases where all agents prefer a selfish government to no government at all.capital income tax, selfish government, welfare improvement, redistribution

The Welfare Enhancing Effects of a Selfish Government in the Presence of Uninsuarable, Idiosyncratic Risk

This paper poses the following question: Is it possible to improve welfare by increasing taxes and throwing away the revenues? This paper demonstrates that the answer to this question is "yes." We show that there may be welfare gains from taxing capital income even when the additional capital income tax revenues are wasted or consumed by a selfish government. Previous literature has assumed that government expenditures are exogenous or productive, or allowed for redistribution of tax revenue either via lump-sum transfers, unemployment compensation or other redistributive schemes. In our model a selfish government taxes capital above a given threshold and then consumes the proceeds. This raises the before-tax real return on capital and and thereby enhances the ability of agents to self-insure when they are long-term unemployed and have low savings. Since all agents have positive probability of finding themselves in that state there are cases where all agents prefer a selfish government to no government at all.

"The Welfare Enhancing Effects of a Selfish Government in the Presence of Uninsurable, Idiosyncratic Risk"

This paper poses the following question: Is it possible to improve welfare by increasing taxes and throwing away the revenues? This paper demonstrates that the answer to this question is "yes." We show that there may be welfare gains from taxing capital income even when the additional capital income tax revenues are wasted or consumed by a selfish government. Previous literature has assumed that government expenditures are exogenous or productive, or allowed for redistribution of tax revenue either via lump-sum transfers, unemployment compensation or other redistributive schemes. In our model a selfish government taxes capital above a given threshold and then consumes the proceeds. This raises the before-tax real return on capital and and thereby enhances the ability of agents to self-insure when they are long-term unemployed and have low savings. Since all agents have positive probability of finding themselves in that state there are cases where all agents prefer a selfish government to no government at all.

PALP - a User Manual

This article provides a complete user's guide to version 2.1 of the toric geometry package PALP by Maximilian Kreuzer and others. In particular, previously undocumented applications such as the program nef.x are discussed in detail. New features of PALP 2.1 include an extension of the program mori.x which can now compute Mori cones and intersection rings of arbitrary dimension and can also take specific triangulations of reflexive polytopes as input. Furthermore, the program nef.x is enhanced by an option that allows the user to enter reflexive Gorenstein cones as input. The present documentation is complemented by a Wiki which is available online.Comment: 71 pages, to appear in "Strings, Gauge Fields, and the Geometry Behind - The Legacy of Maximilian Kreuzer". PALP Wiki available at http://palp.itp.tuwien.ac.at/wiki/index.php/Main_Pag

Vergleich verschiedener Klee-Gras-Mischungen anhand der Wurzel- und Sprossleistung

Zusammenfassung Ziel der Arbeit war es einen Beitrag zur Optimierung der Kleegras-Gemenge im Hinblick auf verbesserte Wurzelleistung, hohen Sprossertrag, höherer Artenvielfalt und Tiergesundheit zu liefern. Im einem Feldversuch (2007) wurde eine handelsübliche Kleegrasmischung (NF3) zwei selbst zusammengestellte Mischungen mit erhöhtem Leguminosen- und Kräuteranteil (FMB und GDM) bei unterschiedlichen Nutzungen (Schnitt und Mulch) gegenübergestellt. Sprossertrag, N-Entzug, symbiontisch fixierte N-Menge, Bestandeszusammensetzung und Wurzelparameter wurden gemessen. Die Bestandeszusammensetzung verschob sich in den Mulchvarianten zu Gunsten des Grasanteils. Einige Kräuter konnten sich während der gesamten Vegetation gut behaupten. Der Sprossertrag war unabhängig von den Mischungs- und Nutzungsvarianten. Die Menge an symbiontisch fixiertem Stickstoff lag in der NF3-Mischung bei jährlich 90 kg N ha-1, in der FMB bei 290 kg N ha-1 und in der GDM bei 340 kg N ha-1. Die GDM wies eine signifikant geringere Wurzellänge als FMB und NF3 auf, die mit dem geringen Grasanteil zu begründen ist. Die Wurzeltrockenmassen nahmen in der Reihenfolge NF3 < GDM < FMB signifikant zu. Eine gleichmäßigere Durchwurzelung aller Bodenschichten wurde in den Varianten FMB und GDM durch die Hinzunahme der tiefwurzelnden Arten erreich

Kinetic Freeze-out and Radial Flow in 11.6 A GeV Au+Au Collisions

We study the kinetic freeze-out conditions of hadrons in Au+Au collisions at 11.6 A GeV/c using different parametrizations of an expanding thermal fireball. We take into account the available double differential momentum spectra of a variety of particle species, covering a large fraction of the total momentum space. The overall fit to the data is very good and indicates a relatively low kinetic freeze-out temperature of about 90 MeV with an average transverse expansion velocity at midrapidity of about 0.5 c.Comment: 5 pages ReVTeX, incl. 3 figures and 2 tables. Revised version with improved discussion of model and added references. Accepted by Phys. Lett.