By inverting Saez (2002)'s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize the redistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal) social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time and show great stability despite...

Using a collective model of consumption, we characterize optimal commodity taxes aimed at targeting specific individuals within the household. The main message is that distortionary indirect taxation can circumvent the agency problem of the household. Essentially, taxation should discourage less...

We show how normative standpoints determine optimal taxation of wealth. Since wealth is not equal to capital, we find very different welfare implications of land rent-, bequest- and capital taxation. It is mainly land rents that should be taxed. We develop an overlapping generations model with...

Income mobility is often thought to equalize permanent incomes and, thereby, to improve social welfare. The welfare analysis of mobility often fails, however, to account for the cost of the variability of periodic incomes around permanent incomes. This paper assesses the net welfare benefit of...

This paper follows the theory of optimal taxation and the goal is to identify a tax/benefit design that maximizes social welfare. A two stage process is proposed where the individuals preferred choice of leisure and consumption is solved in the first stage, and the second stage identifies the...

Many OECD countries such as the USA, the UK or Switzerland are concerned with the affordability of utility services and the distributional consequences inherent in the pricing strategy of basic goods and services, such as electricity. However, the effectiveness of the electricity tariff as a...

I study the optimal taxation of robots and labor income. In the model, robots substitute for routine labor and complement non-routine labor. I show that while it is optimal to distort robot adoption, robots may be either taxed or subsidized. The robot tax exploits general-equilibrium effects to...

We study the impact of endogenous longevity on optimal tax progressivity and inequality in an overlapping generations model with skill heterogeneity. Higher tax progressivity decreases both the longevity gap and net income inequality, but at the expense of lower average lifetime and lower...

Whether observed differences in redistributive policies across countries are the result of differences in social preferences or efficiency constraints is an important question that paves the debate about the optimality of welfare regimes. To shed new light on this question, we estimate labor...