The global financial and the subsequent European Sovereign Debt crisis have renewed the interest in fiscal policy as a macroeconomic stabilization device because central banks have lost their conventional measure of stimulating the economy through reductions in the policy interest rate. At the same time, rising debt burdens following the crisis - especially in Europe - have called into question...
Abstract: We study how attitudes to inheritance taxation are influenced by information about the role of inherited wealth in society. Using a randomized experiment in a register-linked Swedish survey, we find that informing individuals about the large aggregate importance of inherited wealth and its link to inequality of opportunity significantly increases the support for inheritance taxation. The...
Summary: This talk will provide a survey of several papers on the theory and practice of experimental design. I will compare different objectives (estimator precision, outcomes of participants, informing policy choice to maximize average outcomes, and informing policy choice to maximize utilitarian welfare), and their implications for experimental design. I will consider heuristic...
