Tag Archives: Federal government

In September 1986, The Economist weekly newspaper published its first-ever “Big Mac Index”. It was a light-hearted way for the paper to gauge whether foreign currencies are over- or under-valued by comparing the prices of Big Macs around the world. In theory, the price of a Big Mac in Rio de Janeiro should be the same as a Big Mac in Cairo or Toronto. After all, no matter where in the world you buy one, a Big Mac...

VoxEU, October 11, 2016, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. HTML. The US fiscal system underwent a radical transformation around the time of the Great Depression. Perceived cost differences of revenue collection across levels of government, due to general equilibrium effects, can partly explain the rise of tax centralization and intergovernmental grants. We develop a micro-founded general equilibrium model that blends politics and macroeconomics. (See the working paper.)