Firms devote significant resources to maintain and repair thei existing capital. Within a real business cycle model featuring arguably small aggregate increasing returns, this paper assesses the stabilizing effects of fiscal policies with a maintenance expenditure allowance. In this setup, firms...

We analyze how investment subsidies can affect aggregate volatility and growth in economies subject to capital market imperfections. Within a model featuring both frictions on the credit market and unequal access to investment opportunities among individuals, we provide specific fiscal...

International differences in fuel taxation are huge, and may be justified by different local negative externalities that taxes must correct, as well as by different preferences for public spending. In this context, should a worldwide unique carbon tax be added to these local taxes to correct the...

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 this paper, we try to understand the economic policies choice of countries in terms of size. According to the case whether a country is large or small, it will have different incentives in the choice of its growth strategy. Theoretically, a large country would prefer use a policy which...

In this paper, we focus on the concept of size of country (or economy). Specifically, within the European Union (EU), we look for growth discrepancies between countries according to their size. We try to explain growth differential using arguments related to the size of countries. Thus, we...

In this paper, we pursue several goals; we first check if the downward trend in corporate income tax rates in Europe reflects a strategy of tax competition, and not a "yardstick competition" in neighboring countries. We estimate the scale of fiscal externalities on neighboring countries in terms...