Budget share and optimal commodity taxes without computation

This paper shows for the linear expenditure system that the optimal tax rates increase across commodities in the ratio of the respective budget shares of the rich to those of the poor—i.e., the more luxurious good has a higher tax. These budget shares can be calculated either at pre-tax or post-tax price levels, thus can be expressed directly in terms of the basic parameters of the linear expenditure system.     

Rising UI benefits over time

We re-examine a key result in the optimal UI literature that benefits should decline over time. We show that when the population is heterogeneous, Pareto-efficiency may call for multiple payment schedules, some with benefits that fall over time and some with benefits that rise over time.     

Welfare Migration: Is the Net Fiscal Burden a Good Measure of its Economic Impact on the Welfare of the Native-Born Population?

Migration of young workers (as distinct from retirees), evenwhen driven in by the generosity of the welfare state, slowsdown the trend of increasing dependency ratio. But, even thoughlow-skill migration improves the dependency ratio, it neverthelessburdens the welfare state. Recent studies by Smith and Edmonston(1977), and Sinn et al. (2003) comprehensively estimate thefiscal burden that low-skill migration imposes on the fiscalsystem. However an important message of this paper is that inan infinite-horizon set-up, one cannot fully grasp the implicationsof migration for the welfare state, just by looking at the netfiscal burden that migrants impose on the fiscal system. Inan infinite-horizon, overlapping generations economy, this netburden, could change to net gain to the native born population.(JEL F22, H3, J10)     

Using accounting earnings and aggregate economic indicators to estimate firm-level systematic risk

Review of Accounting Studies - We revisit the literature on using accounting earnings to estimate firm-level systematic risk, using macroeconomic indicators rather than listed-firm indexes to...     

Correction to: using accounting earnings and aggregate economic indicators to estimate firm-level systematic risk

Review of Accounting Studies - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-021-09637-1     

Are Momentum Profits Robust to Trading Costs?

We test whether momentum strategies remain profitable after considering market frictions induced by trading. Intraday data are used to estimate alternative measures of proportional and non-proportional (price impact) trading costs. The price impact models imply that abnormal returns to portfolio strategies decline with portfolio size. We calculate break-even fund sizes that lead to zero abnormal returns. In addition to equal- and value-weighted momentum strategies, we derive a liquidity-weighted strategy designed to reduce the cost of trades. Equal-weighted strategies perform the best before trading costs and the worst after trading costs. Liquidity-weighted and hybrid liquidity/value-weighted strategies have the largest break-even fund sizes: $5 billion or more (relative to December 1999 market capitalization) may be invested in these momentum strategies before the apparent profit opportunities vanish.