Mixing Government with Voluntaryism

The provision of public goods by voluntary contributions alone is feasible but the outcome is suboptimal. This paper examines the potential for government supplementation of the voluntary contribution system in order to retain the basic features but improve the outcome. it is shown that attempted supplementation through taxes or subsidies either has no effect or does actual harm. In general, a pure voluntary system or a complete government override is superior to a government-voluntary mix. The supporting propositions, both old and new, are derived from a simple unified treatment of the voluntary contribution system in a variety of contexts

How More Taxes Can Be Better Than Less: A Note on Aggregating Deadweight Losses

There is a deadweight loss from imposing a tax on a single commodity, but there is no such loss from a uniform tax on all commodities with lump-sum return, and obviously no loss if no commodity is taxed. The object of this paper is to weave a consistent story relating these three well established propositions, something that has hitherto been lacking. Using a simple general equilibrium model with a CES utility function, it is shown that, as more goods are taxed: (1) The deadweight loss per dollar of revenue falls monotonically, and (2) the aggregate deadweight loss rises to a maximum, then falls to zero. In particular, it is sometimes better to tax more goods than to eliminate taxes on existing ones

The Optimal Income Tax Schedule

The principal conclusion of this paper is that the generic pattern for the optimal income tax schedule is that of a monotonically rising marginal tax rate. The belief that the marginal rate should decline to zero at the upper end of the scale is not supported. The Results should hold for high and low elasticities of labor-leisure substitution, and for additive as well as strictly concave welfare functions. Differences between the conclusions of this paper and those of previous writers are due primarily to the formulation of the optimizing problem and detailed interpretation and analysis of the solution, rather thank to differences between the underlying models, although these exist

Contract cheating & the market in essays

We conduct the first empirical economic investigation of the decision to cheat by University students. We investigate student demand for essays, using hypothetical discrete choice experiments in conjunction with consequential Holt-Laury gambles to derive subjects risk preferences. Students stated willingness to participate in the essay market, and their valuation of purchased essays, vary with the characteristics of student and institutional environment. Risk preferring students, those working in a non-native language, and those believing they will attain a lower grade are willing to pay more. Purchase likelihoods and essay valuations decline as the probability of detection and associated penalty increase

Rust never sleeps: the continuing story of the Iron Bolt

Since 1981, Gordon Research Conferences have been held on the topic of Oxygen Radicals on a biennial basis, to highlight and discuss the latest cutting edge research in this area. Since the first meeting, one special feature of this conference has been the awarding of the so-called Iron Bolt, an award that started in jest but has gained increasing reputation over the years. Since no written documentation exists for this Iron Bolt award, this perspective serves to overview the history of this unusual award, and highlights various experiences of previous winners of this “prestigious” award and other interesting anecdotes