This paper examines the economic effects of tax reform in an endogenous growth model that allows for two types of useful public expenditures; one type contributes to human capital information while the other provides direct utility to households. We show that the optimal fiscal policy calls for...

We show that the steady-state optimal tax on capital income can be negative, positive, or zero in a neoclassical growth model that allows for imperfectly competitive product markets. The sign of the optimal tax rate depends crucially on (1) the degree of monopoly power, (2) the extent to which...

The case for an independent central bank is becoming increasingly accepted. This new orthodoxy is based on three foundations: the success of the Bundesbank and the German economy over the past forty years; the theoretical academic literature on the inflationary bias of discretionary...