Random taxation may be optimal when the taxpayers differ in their attitudes towards risk, so that tax randomization enables the government to relax the incentive constraints. The paper provides a necessary and sufficient condition for local random deviations to be welfare improving in a...

An optimal contract may involve randomization when the agents differ in their attitudes towards risk, so that randomization enables the principal to relax the incentive constraints. The paper provides a necessary and sufficient condition for local random deviations to be welfare improving in a...

We provide a first attempt to include off-balance sheet, implicit insurance to SIFIs into a consistent assessment of fiscal sustainability, for 27 countries of the European Union. We first calculate tax gaps à la Blanchard (1990) and Blanchard et al. (1990). We then introduce two alternative...

A government designs transfers to agents in the absence of information on their preferences. The second-best allocation is equal sharing among citizens when the awards are deterministic. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which lotteries improve upon the egalitarian outcome....

In France, since 2001, home care for disabled elderly can be partially subsidized by a public allowance (allocation personnalisée d'autonomie - APA). For eligible elderly people, the amount to be paid for one hour of formal home care depends on their income, according to a national rule, but...

This paper focuses on the interaction between gender discrimination and household decisions. It develops a general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility, endogenous labor supply and endogenous size of government spending. Family policies are assumed to decrease the time that parents spend...

This paper assesses the optimal level of public debt in a new framework where aggregate fluctuations are taken into account. Agents are subject to both aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and the market structure prevents them from perfectly insuring against the risk. We find that the optimal...

We provide a necessary condition for optimal commodity taxes when agents differ according to labor skill and consumption tastes and when the government can also use a general nonlinear tax on labor income. The discouragement index of commodities in shown to be the sum of (1) the distributive...

There exists a large consensus in the economic literature and in the economic institutions about the legitimacy of policies subsidizing education. This legitimacy lies in the fact that education is a source of positive externalities. In a standard framework of endogenous fertility, the present...

This paper intends to analyze some macroeconomic aspects in the framework of the Optimal Taxation Theory. First of all Optimal Taxation filiation will be considered in studying the three functions of the state described in Musgrave's work. The collective book published in 1994, and entitled...