In the absence of an equalization grant system, like we justify occurs in Spain at the local level of government, those governments that bear a decrease in their level of tax capacity will have to adjust their budget either by increasing their level of tax effort, by reducing their level of...

In this paper, we develop a simple theoretical model in order to explain how politicians choose between progressive and regressive tax schemes that serve to afford some local service production costs. It consists of a bipartisan model in which each party’s preferences are lexicographic, giving...

Uncertainty about the future preferences of the government may induce policy makers to run excessive budget deficits. As a solution to this problem, economists have proposed to impose a binding debt rule. In this paper we argue that a binding debt rule does not eliminate the distortions due to...

Nous étudions l'impact des regroupements municipaux survenus au Québec entre 1992 et 1999 sur les taux de taxation effectifs et la valeur marchande des propriétés résidentielles. Nous montrons que l'effet d'un regroupement sur ces deux volets de la vie municipale est indéterminé....

This work is focused on identifying the relationship an economic system and its policies have with the environment. The biosphere is chosen in particular as object of analysis but this can be extended by means of an ecosystem recursive properties. The common factor involved in the relationship...

We investigate the dynamic effects of five different fiscal shocks on the US economy using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model that uses Blanchard-Quah type restrictions. We find that an increase in indirect taxes or in corporate taxes has a contractionary effect on the economy,...

We make two main contributions to the theory of optimal income taxation. First, assuming conditions sufficient for existence of a Pareto optimal income tax and public goods mechanism, we show that if agents’ preferences satisfy an extended notion of single crossing called capacity constrained...

Tax Burden, defined as the ratio of total tax revenues over personal income, is prominently used to summarize state tax policy. We analyze the empirical relationship between changes in Tax Burden and changes in state tax policy from 1987 to 2000 – as measured by states’ own forecasts of the...

This paper studies the Ramsey problem of optimal labor income taxation in a simple model economy which deviates from a first best representative agent economy in three important aspects, namely, flat rate second best tax, monopoly power in intermediate product market, and monopolistic wage...

The recent general trend of cutting top marginal income tax rates in industrialized economies and the policy concern of enhancing competition in the US and the EU product markets subtly motivate the question if low income tax rates are optimal in an economy with imperfectly competitive markets....