A Voucher Supplement To Existing Anti-Discrimination Programs In The Job Market

This paper draws on literatures on vouchers and discrimination, and derives an optimal voucher scheme as a supplement to standard anti-discrimination policies, including affirmative action. Surveying current policy methods, it compares efficiency and distributional effects of vouchers to those of the standard enforcement policies. The motivation for vouchers is based on efficiency, equity, and on observed divergence of racial unemployment rates combined with convergence of wage rates.

Impact of the introduction of index-linked bonds on a nonindexed bond

In 1982 the British government began to issue bonds indexed to the inflation rate. This article investigates the impact of the introduction of this asset on the market for a nonindexed security. The impact is estimated in the context of a model derived from the literature on interest rate determination and, implicitly, from the consumption technology model. As expected, the introduction of the new asset is found to reduce the price of a pre-existing nonindexed asset, as the introduction of a substitute good should do. Further, changes in the prices of indexed bonds are positively related to the price of the nonindexed security.