We develop a simple model of managing a system subject to pollution damage under risk of an abrupt and random jump in the damage coefficient. The model allows the full dynamic characterization of the optimal emission policies under uncertainty. The results, that imply prudent behavior due to...

This paper investigates regional or international transfers as a means to prevent immigration into unemployment. We analyze a two-country model with free migration in which the rich country is characterized by minimum wage unemployment. Matching grants for investment in infrastructure are...

A pay-as-you-go (paygo) pension program may provide intergenerational pooling of risks to individuals' labor and capital income over the life cycle. By means of a model that provides illuminating closed form solutions, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the optimal paygo program and the nature...

We investigate how continental European unemployment can be reduced without reducing unemployment benefits and without reducing the net income of low-wage earners. Lower unemployment replacement rates reduce unemployment, the net wage and unemployment benefits. A lower tax on labour increases...

This paper extends the standard model of optimum commodity taxation (Ramsey (1927) and Diamond-Mirrlees (1971)) to a competitive economy in which some markets are inefficient due to asymmetric information. As in most insurance markets, consumers impose varying costs on suppliers but firms cannot...

Assuming decreasing returns to education and the endogenous supply of qualified and nonqualified labour it is shown to be efficient to supplement a consumption tax with positive incentives for education. If the return from education is isoelastic and if the choice is between (i) subsidizing the...

We show in a two-period world with endogenous savings and two assets, one of them exhibiting a stochastic return, that an interest-adjusted income tax is optimal. This tax leaves a riskless component of interest income tax free and taxes the excess return with a special tax rate. There is no...