We analyze optimal taxation of labor and capital income in a life-cycle framework with idiosyncratic income risk. We … independent of the social welfare function and determined by the degree of income risk and risk aversion. The optimal linear … provide a novel decomposition of labor income tax formulas into a redistribution and an insurance component. The latter is …

Using detailed tax data from the Swiss canton of Bern, I examine how changes in wealth are related to income risk. I … find that only among elderly individuals high kurtosis of income risk may be positively correlated with wealth accumulation … wealth investors experience sharp increases in wealth and income in subsequent periods. Finally, wealth risk is more …

The public finance literature has modeled income shifting as a decision along the intensive margin even though it … margin has crucial policy implications: the classical distinction between income creation and income shifting breaks down. We … supply elasticities, and costs of income shifting. In the most empirically plausible scenario when people who shift easily …

can get an estimate of the taxable income elasticity from the bunching pattern around a kink point. The bunching estimator … cannot identify the taxable income elasticity when the functional form of the distribution of preference heterogeneity is … unknown. We find that an observed distribution of taxable income around a kink point in a budget set can be consistent with …

idiosyncratic labor income risk. Ceteris paribus, an individual would prefer to marry a "hedge" (i.e., a spouse whose income is … to agents' income is early, then those who in fact married hedges (and for good reason) are the ones most likely to be … resolution of uncertainty to agents' income is predominantly later, then those who in fact marry hedges will in fact be less …

with ten to forty years of observations from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics. We find that neither is strongly …

of optimal risk-sharing in mortgage contracts. But since only a small literature has studied this question, more research … termination via prepayment or default affects optimal risk-sharing. The broad conclusion of the analysis is that potential … mortgage termination makes higher risk exposure for borrowers optimal …