In this paper we examine the importance of imperfect competition in product and labour markets in determining the long-run welfare effects of tax reforms assuming agent heterogeneity in capital holdings. Each of these market failures, independently, results in welfare losses for at least a...

The stylized facts suggest a negative relationship between tax progressivity and the skill premium from the early 1960s until the early 1990s, and a positive one thereafter. They also generally imply rising tax progressivity, except for the 1980s. In this paper, we ask whether optimal tax policy...

Scandinavian countries are often portrayed in policy debates as model examples having shown how to square concerns for efficiency and equity. The core principle of the Scandinavian welfare model is an individual entitlement to public sector provisions combined with collective financing via...

In this paper, we quantitatively assess the welfare implications of alternative public education spending rules. To this end, we employ a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which human capital externalities and public education expenditures, financed by distorting taxes, enhance the...

Using a heterogeneous agent model allowing for different degrees of complementarity between capital, skilled and unskilled labour, this paper evaluates supply-side reforms consistent with lower public debt-to-GDP in the long-run. We find that, relative to the other tax reforms, capital tax cuts...

This paper studies the aggregate and distributional implications of Markov-perfect tax-spending policy in a neoclassical growth model with capitalists and workers. Focusing on the long run, our main findings are: (i) it is optimal for a benevolent government, which cares equally about its...