In a model with ex-ante homogenous households, earnings risk and a general earnings function, we derive the optimal linear labor tax rate and optimal linear education subsidies. The optimal income tax trades off social insurance against incentives to work and to invest in human capital....

This paper conducts a broad-based comparison of iterated and direct multi-step forecasting approaches applied to both univariate and multivariate models. Theoretical results and Monte Carlo simulations suggest that iterated forecasts dominate direct forecasts when estimation error is a...

This paper introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence. A double-indexed process is said to be cross sectionally weakly dependent at a given point in time, t, if its weighted average along the cross section dimension (N) converges to its expectation in...

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on labor income and savings in a standard two-period life-cycle model with endogenous leisure demands in both periods and non-insurable income risks. Households are subject to skill shocks in both periods of the life-cycle. We allow for completely general...

This paper investigates the limit properties of mean-variance (mv) and arbitrage pricing (ap) trading strategies using a general dynamic factor model, as the number of assets diverge to infinity. It extends the results obtained in the literature for the exact pricing case to two other cases of...

This paper extends the analysis of infinite dimensional vector autoregressive models (IVAR) proposed in Chudik and Pesaran (2010) to the case where one of the variables or the cross section units in the IVAR model is dominant or pervasive. This extension is not straightforward and involves...

This paper develops a Mirrlees (1971) framework with heterogeneous agents to analyze optimal redistributive taxes, optimal provision of public goods and the marginal cost of public funds (MCF). Standard MCF measures are shown to suffer from three defects: i) The MCF for the (non-individualized)...