For policy reforms to increase a society's welfare, reliable information on people's prefer-ences and expectations is crucial. Representative opinion polls, often involving simplified questions about the complex topics under debate, are an important source of information for both policy-makers...

Taxes and cash transfers reduce income inequality more in France than elsewhere in the OECD, because of the large size of the flows involved. But the system is complex overall. Its effectiveness could be enhanced in many ways, for example so as to achieve the same amount of redistribution at...

We model the optimal reaction of a public PAYG pension system to demographic shocks. We compare the ex-ante first best and second best solution of a Ramsey planner with full commitment to the outcome under simple third best rules that mimic the pension systems observed in the real world. The...

We analyse attempts to implement personalised regulation in the form of sin licenses (O’Donoghue and Rabin 2003, 2005, 2007) to correct the distortion in the consumption of a harmful good when consumers suffer from varying degrees of self-control problems. We take into account the possibility...

This paper analyses the reaction of fiscal policy to the cycle in OECD countries. The results suggest that while overall government balances were counter-cyclical in the past and more so in economic downturns than in upswings, discretionary fiscal policy was neutral on average. However,...

We analyse the determination of taxes on harmful goods when consumers have self-control problems. We show that under reasonable assumptions, the socially optimal corrective tax exceeds the average distortion caused by self-control problems. Further, we analyse how individuals with self-control...

We examine how the introduction of self-control preferences influences the trade-off between two fundamental components of a public pension system: the contribution rate and its degree of redistribution. The pension regime affects individuals’ welfare by altering how yielding to temptation...

Pension benefit rules depend on individual history far more than taxes do, and age plays a much larger role in pension determination than in tax determination. Apart from some simulation studies, theoretical studies of optimal tax design typically contain neither a mandatory pension system nor...

This paper shows that the combination of habit formation - present consumption creating additional consumption needs in the future - and myopia may explain why some retirees are forced to ‘unretire’, i.e., unexpectedly return to work. It also shows that when myopia about habit formation...

This paper studies a problem of non linear taxation when individuals have different longevities resulting from a non-monetary effort (like exercising). We first present the laissez-faire and the first best. Like Becker and Philipson (1998), we find that the laissez-faire level of effort is too...