We analyze the long-run optimal combination of wealth and labor tax rates in a model where wealth-to-income ratios and wealth inequality are rising endogenously. We consider rich (lenders) and poor (borrowers) households, financial and housing wealth, and find that a ''realistic'' optimal steady...

Using a simple two-sector life cycle economy with housing services and bequests, we show that a rising labor efficiency in the general economy relative to the construction sector can go a long way toward explaining a significant fraction of the rising trends in wealth-to-income ratios, housing...

In this paper, we consider economies with (possibly endogenous) solvency constraints under uncertainty. Constrained inefficiency corresponds to a feasible redistribution yielding a welfare improvement beginning from every contingency reached by the economy. A sort of Cass Criterion (Cass, 1972)...

I discuss two alternative notions of social welfare (utilitarian and self- enforcing) in a dynastic model with heterogeneous and persistent degrees of parental altruism and evaluate the implied levels of consumption inequality. Then, I study a decentralization of planning optima in a competitive...

We consider optimal taxation in a model with wealth-poor and wealth-rich households, where wealth derives from business capital and home ownership, and investigate the consequences of a rising wealth inequality at steady state on these tax rates. The optimal tax structure includes some taxation...

I analyze an overlapping generations model with old age productivity risk where wages, employment and severance payments are set through efficient bargaining between risk averse unions and risk neutral firms. Equilibrium allocations with limited union membership are second-best inefficient as...

We study the long run optimal redistributive tax structure on capital and labor in a dynamic model with heterogeneous labor productivities and skill biased technology. Assuming that the planner's actions are restricted by a log-linear (progressive) tax and transfer function of pre-tax labor...

We reexamine the tests for dynamic inefficiency in productive overlapping-generations economies with stochastic growth. Contrary to certain recent claims in the literature, we argue that the size of real, long-term, safe interest rates relative to average GDP growth is an inconclusive test for...