Much criticism of the income tax involves administration: the enormous complexity of the system is responsible for large compliance costs, public and private, and the tax gap is large despite substantial resources devoted to enforcement. The desire for simplification and improved compliance...

This study uncovers a statistically significant negative correlation between volatility and private investment over the 1970-93 period in a set of almost fifty developing countries and provides a possible interpretation of this result by using the disappointment- aversion expected utility...

Developing countries use various risk reduction schemes, ranging from active management of buffer stocks and international reserves to commodity stabilization funds. The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the design of these schemes in a generalized expected utility maximization model where...

This paper investigates budgetary rules for an economy characterized by inflation and volatile relative prices. We view the budgetary process as a limited contingencies contract between the treasury and the ministers. The budgetary process allows a minister, whose realized real budget falls...

This paper shows that volatility induces adverse first order welfare effects in countries excluded from the global capital market. This result is illustrated in a model characterized by gains from a greater division of activities, where shocks are persistent. We show that non-linearities...

Recent literature has highlighted the importance of new activities in development and growth. It was shown that trade distortions such as tariffs are associated with first-order costs stemming from the induced drop in the formation of new activities. This paper demonstrates that uncertainty may...

The federal income tax and major welfare programs do not take into account significant cost-of-living variations among regions. This article considers what adjustments might be appropriate in light of the distributive purposes of tax and welfare systems and concerns about the efficiency of the...

Anti-utilitarian norms often are used in assessing tax systems. Two motivations support this practice. First, many believe utilitarianism to be insufficiently egalitarian. Second, utilitarianism does not give independent weight to other equitable principles, notably concerns that reforms may...

Altruistically motivated gifts involve a species of consumption externality. Donors obtain an altruistic benefit from the effect of their gifts on donees' utility but do not take into account that the benefit to donees is itself relevant to social welfare. The level of gift-giving thus will be...