This paper presents the properties of optimal piecewise linear income tax systems for families based on joint and individual incomes respectively. It models the interaction between the wage rates of mothers as "second earners" and variation in child care prices and productivities as determinants...

Given its significance in practice, the piecewise linear tax system seems to have received disproportionately little attention in the literature on optimal income taxation. This paper offers a simple and transparent analysis of its main characteristics

In a careful and thorough empirical study, Christopher Udry (1996) shows convincingly that, in a large sample of West African households, household resource allocations were not Pareto efficient. This paper argues that observation of the Pareto inefficiency of a household resource allocation...

This paper presents the properties of optimal piecewise linear tax systems for two-earner households, based on joint and individual incomes respectively. A key contribution is the analysis of the interaction between second earner wage differences, variation in the price of child care and...

This paper analyses optimal piecewise linear tax systems for two-earner households, based on joint and individual incomes respectively. It models the interaction between wage rates and variation in child care prices and productivities as determinants of across-household heterogeneity in second...