Taxes and Labor Supply: Portugal, Europe, and the United States (Conference Version)

I relate hours worked with taxes on consumption and labor. I propose a model and compare its predictions for Portugal, France, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. Hours per worker in Portugal decreased from 35.1 in 1986 to 32.6 in 2001. With only the parameters and the taxes for Portugal, the model predicts the hours worked in 2001 with an error of only 12 minutes from the actual hours. Across countries, most predictions differ from the data by one hour or less. The model is able to explain the trend in hours with only the changes in taxes. JEL codes:labor supply, consumption tax, labor income tax

Taxes and Labor Supply: Portugal, Europe, and the United States

I relate hours worked with taxes on consumption and labor for Portugal, France, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. From 1986 to 2001, hours per worker in Portugal decreased from 35.1 to 32.6. With the parameters for Portugal, the model predicts hours worked in 2001 with an error of only 12 minutes from the actual hours. Across countries, most predictions differ from the data by one hour or less. The model is not sensible to special assumptions on the parameters. I calculate the long run effects of taxes on consumption, hours, capital and welfare for Portugal. I extend the model to discuss implications for Social Security. I discuss the steady state and the transition from a pay-as-yougo to a fully funded system. JEL codes:E6, H3labor supply, consumption tax, labor income tax

Individual and Aggregate Money Demands

I construct a model in which money and bond holdings are consistent with individual decisions and aggregate variables such as production and interest rates. The agents are infinitely-lived, have constant-elasticity preferences, and receive a fraction of their income in money. Each agent solves a Baumol-Tobin money management problem. Markets are segmented because financial frictions make agents trade bonds for money at different times. Trading frequency, consumption, government decisions and prices are mutually consistent. An increase in inflation, for example, implies higher trading frequency, more bonds sold to account for seigniorage, and lower real balances. JEL codes:E3, E4, E5money demand, cash management, inventory problem, market segmentation

Basalt depths in lunar basins using impact craters as stratigraphic probes: Evaluation of a method using orbital geochemical data

A rare look at the chemical composition of subsurface stratigraphy in lunar basins filled with mare basalt is possible at fresh impact craters. Mg/Al maps from orbital X-ray flourescence measurements of mare areas indicate chemical anomalies associated with materials ejected by large post-mare impacts. A method of constraining the wide-ranging estimates of mare basalt depths using the orbital MG/Al data is evaluated and the results are compared to those of investigators using different indirect methods. Chemical anomalies at impact craters within the maria indicate five locations where higher Mg/Al basalt compositions may have been excavated from beneath the surface layer. At eight other locations, low Mg/Al anomalies suggest that basin-floor material was ejected. In these two cases, the stratigraphic layers are interpreted to occur at depths less than the calculated maximum depth of excavation. In five other cases, there is no apparent chemical change between the crater and the surrounding mare surface. This suggests homogeneous basalt compositions that extend down to the depths sampled, i.e., no anorthositic material that might represent the basin floor was exposed

Dispersion of the time spent in a state: General expression for unicyclic model and dissipation-less precision

We compare the relation between dispersion and dissipation for two random variables that can be used to characterize the precision of a Brownian clock. The first random variable is the current between states. In this case, a certain precision requires a minimal energetic cost determined by a known thermodynamic uncertainty relation. We introduce a second random variable that is a certain linear combination of two random variables, each of which is the time a stochastic trajectory spends in a state. Whereas the first moment of this random variable is equal to the average probability current, its dispersion is generally different from the dispersion associated with the current. Remarkably, for this second random variable a certain precision can be obtained with an arbitrarily low energy dissipation, in contrast to the thermodynamic uncertainty relation for the current. As a main technical achievement, we provide an exact expression for the dispersion related to the time that a stochastic trajectory spends in a cluster of states for a general unicyclic network.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur

Skewness and Kurtosis in Statistical Kinetics

We obtain lower and upper bounds on the skewness and kurtosis associated with the cycle completion time of unicyclic enzymatic reaction schemes. Analogous to a well known lower bound on the randomness parameter, the lower bounds on skewness and kurtosis are related to the number of intermediate states in the underlying chemical reaction network. Our results demonstrate that evaluating these higher order moments with single molecule data can lead to information about the enzymatic scheme that is not contained in the randomness parameter.Comment: 5+3 pages, 4 figure