Dirk Niepelt

CEPR Discussion Paper 11482, August 2016, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF. Also published as CESifo Working Paper 6062, Study Center Gerzensee Working Paper 16-05. PDF, PDF. We propose a theory of tax centralization and inter governmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. This renders the degree of tax centralization and the tax...

Nevada offers lots of loneliness, including The Loneliest Road in America. Some other roads are even quieter.

The Economist reports about the political economy aspects of America’s semi-nationalized mortgage industry.

Enlargeable topographic map of the contiguous United States with hypsometric tints. Source: Wikipedia.

On a new website, Aleksander Berentsen rejects the Swiss Vollgeld initiative. As an alternative, he suggests the Swiss National Bank should offer transaction accounts for everybody, in line with proposals I have made earlier (see here (2016), here (2015), here (2015)). In the Handelszeitung (here and here), Simon Schmid reports.

Webinar about the potential impacts of the Swiss Vollgeldinitiative and other instances of the Chicago plan on banking and finance. Speakers are Prof. Dirk Niepelt (Uni Bern) in Zürich and Ron Rimkus CFA (CFA Institute) in the US. Copyright 2016, CFA Institute. Reproduced with permission from CFA Institute. All rights reserved.

The Economist speculates that central bank independence might be on its way out. The article suggests that motives for independence (i.e., Sargent/Wallace or Barro/Gordon type arguments) might be less relevant given the environment of low inflation and interest rates. See also my earlier, related blog post.

The Economist reports about research published in JAMA Internal Medicine summarizing the views of patients who suffer from various conditions about the quality of life.