The Ramsey approach to optimal taxation and Ramsey tax rules have amassed substance in economic theory. However, they are often criticized on grounds of practicality, fairness, feasibility and some other aspects of designing actual tax policy. This paper presents a collection of these views; it...

This paper evaluates the trade-off between growth and welfare maximization from two perspectives. Firstly, it synthesizes and extends endogenous growth models with public finance to compare growth and welfare maximizing tax rates. Secondly, it examines the distinct model outcomes in terms of...

Heterogeneity between unemployed and employed individuals matters for optimal fiscal policy. This paper considers the consequences of welfare heterogeneity between these two groups for the determination of optimal capital and labor income taxes in a model with matching frictions in the labor...

We study the structure of optimal wedges and wealth taxes in a Mirrleesian economy with endogenous skills. Human capital is a private state variable that drives the skill process of each individual. Building on the findings of the labor literature, we assume that human capital investment is a)...

Following the seminal work of Mirrlees (REStud, 1971), there has been a large amount of work on how to design an optimal tax system when agents' skills are private information. This literature makes a strong assumption: it assumes that the data generation process for skills in the economy is...

We explore a political-economy model of labor subsidies, extending Meltzer and Richard's median-voter model to a dynamic setting. We explore only one source of heterogeneity: initial wealth. As a consequence, given an operative wealth effect, poorer agents work harder, and if the agent with...

In this paper we argue that it might not be such a bad idea to tax capital income in the long run. We address this question in an environment in which individuals are finitely lived and face uninsurable idiosyncratic labor income risk. In choosing a tax system a benevolent planner trades off...

This paper considers the implications of complementarity in private production and constraints on government for optimal fiscal policy. Using an endogenous growth model with public finance, it derives three central results which modify findings in the literature under standard assumptions....

Robust GDP growth, declining unemployment, low and stable inflation, and a string of fiscal and current account surpluses -- it's a record to be envied. These outcomes in Canada owe much to sound macroeconomic policies, as well as to a favorable external environment. This book focuses on these...