We derive conditions of individual preferences and technology that give rise to a negative correlation between income inequality and environmental protection. We present a class of models (which captures a static model as well as an overlapping-generations model) in which individuals differ in...

This Paper compares education investment in closed and open economies without government and with a benevolent government. Closed economies suffer from a hold-up problem of excessive redistribution, and governments use education policy as a second-best tool. Globalization that increases labour...

Incomplete information is a commitment device for time consistency problems. In the context of time consistent labour income taxation privacy reduces welfare losses and increases the effectiveness of public education as a second best policy.

We analyse how, in representative democracies, income distribution influences the stringency of environmental policy and economic growth. Individuals (who differ in abilities) live for two periods, working when young and owning capital when old. Externalities are caused by a polluting factor....

This Paper explores the relationship between environmental protection and international capital movements, when tax policy is endogenous (through voting). A two-period general equilibrium model of a small open economy is specified to compare the effects of two different constitutions (commitment...

We show that, when there is joint production of an agricultural good and rural amenities, the first-best allocation of resources can be implemented with a tax on the agricultural good and some subsidies on the production factors (land and labour). The use of a subsidy on the agricultural good...

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on unemployment; and the political difficulties in implementing more extensive reform programmes. We argue that the heart of...

The welfare state can be seen as an insurance device that makes lifetime careers safer, increases risk taking and suffers from moral hazard effects. Adopting this view, the paper studies the trade-off between average income and inequality, evaluating redistributive equilibria from an allocative...

If some, but not all, countries are cooperating to reduce CO2 emissions, it can be argued that: A high carbon tax on carbon-intensive tradable sectors in the cooperating countries will reduce the production of goods from these sectors, and therefore CO2 emissions, in those countries. This will...

This Paper studies the design of education policies in a setting of successive generations with heterogeneous individuals (high and low earning ability). Parents’ investment in education is motivated by warm-glow altruism and determines the probability that a child has high ability. Education...