This paper examines an infinite-horizon model of dynamic nonlinear income taxation in which there exists a small probability that the government cannot commit to its future tax policy. In this "loose commitment" environment, we find that even a little uncertainty over whether the government can...

Recent empirical research has found that high-skill individuals tend to be less risk averse than low-skill individuals, which implies that their respective constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility functions have different curvature. This paper examines the effects of this form of...

This paper examines a dynamic model of nonlinear income taxation in which the government cannot commit to its future tax policy, and individuals are quasi-hyperbolic discounters who cannot commit to future consumption plans. The government uses its taxation powers to maximise a utilitarian...

This paper addresses questions of the following nature: under what conditions does a welfare-improving reform of the existing piecewise linear income tax schedule necessitate a change in a particular agent type's marginal tax rate? Our analysis therefore addresses the sorts of questions...

Rather than being a random unpredictable event, the break-up of an equity joint venture after a finite time can be modelled as the predictable consequence of underlying economic parameters under conditions of complete certainty. The paper examines the impact of a range of important economic...

This paper is concerned with the question of how couples should be taxed. One reason for the importance of this issue is simply that the overwhelming majority of individuals live in households formed around couples, and so it could be argued that empirically, this is the single most important...

This paper examines a two-period model of optimal nonlinear income taxation with learning-by-doing, in which second-period wages are an increasing function of first-period labour supply. We consider the cases when the government can and cannot commit to its second-period tax policy. In both...

In many public health care systems treatment is rationed by waiting time. We examine the optimal allocation of a .xed supply of a treatment between di¤erent groups of patients. Even in the absence of any distributional aims welfare is increased by third degree waiting time discrimination....

The optimal allocation of a public health care budget across treatments must take account of the way in which care is rationed within treatments since this will affect their marginal value. We investigate the optimal allocation rules for health care systems where user charges are fixed and care...

This paper addresses questions of the following nature: under what conditions does a welfare-improving reform of a nonlinear income tax system necessitate a change in a particular agent's marginal tax rate or total tax burden? Our analysis is therefore a study in tax reform, rather than in...