This paper analyzes the effects of personal income tax progressivity on long-run economic growth, income inequality and social welfare. The quantitative implications of income tax progressivity increments are illustrated for the US economy under three main headings: individual effects (reduced...

This paper contributes to the literature on majority voting over fiscal policies. We depart from the standard model in two dimensions. First, besides redistributing income, the government uses the net tax revenue to finance the provision of goods and services that become in-kind transfers to the...

In a model where individuals differ in both their health care needs and their lifestyle preferences, we examine the fair provision of health care when those who regret their initial decisions are granted a fresh start. By considering that each agent chooses how to allocate a given amount of...

The apparent ubiquity of progressive taxation in advanced democracies has animated research by political economists in the past decade, but little progress has been made in modeling political equilibria over tax policy when labor supply is elastic with respect to taxation. Here, we postulate an...

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 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 studies the implications of introducing child care in the human capital production function when assessing the effects of labor income taxation on growth. We develop an OLG model where formal schooling and child care enter the human capital production function as complements and we...

Analyzing a homogenous household setting with endogenous fertility and endogenous labor supply, we demonstrate that moving from joint taxation to individual taxation and adapting child benefits so as to keep fertility constant entails a Pareto improvement. The change is associated with an...

This paper shows that outsourcing of parts of the workforce in unionized firms leads to wage moderation and as long as the share of the outsourced workforce is not too large, this wage moderation effect on domestic employment outweighs the direct substitution effect so that domestic employment...

We study optimal income and commodity tax policy with credit-constrained low-income households. Workers are assumed to receive an even ow of income during the tax year, but make tax payments or receive transfers at the end of the year. They use their disposable income to purchase multiple...