This paper examines the choice between government expenditure on public goods and transfer payments, in the form of a pension, in an overlapping-generations model. Government expenditure is tax-financed on a pay-as-you-go basis. A utilitarian judge chooses expenditures to maximize a social...

This paper examines the question of why the composition of government expenditure differs among democratic countries and to what extent it may be explained by differences in economic conditions or preferences. A simple overlapping generations model, which allows for a range of relevant factors,...

This paper reports estimates of the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the net-of-tax rate for New Zealand taxpayers. The relative stability of the New Zealand personal income tax system, in terms of marginal rates, thresholds and the tax base, provides helpful conditions for deriving...

This paper explores, in the context of the Atkinson inequality measure, attempts to make interpretations of orders of magnitude transparent. One suggestion is that the analogy of sharing a cake among a very small number of people provides a useful intuitive description for people who want some...