In this paper we examine the importance of imperfect competition in product and labour markets in determining the long-run welfare effects of tax reforms assuming agent heterogeneity in capital holdings. Each of these market failures, independently, results in welfare losses for at least a...

In this paper we construct a stylised general equilibrium macromodel to show that demand led expansions may have unexpected effects when market imperfections lead to changes in labour productivity. We find some empirical support, from a number of European countries, for the main predictions of...

This paper analyzes whether differences in institutional structures on capital markets contribute to explaining why some OECD-countries, in particular the Anglo-Saxon countries, have been much more successful over the last two decades in producing employment growth and in reducing unemployment...

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model to highlight the role of human capital accumulation of agents differentiated by skill type in the joint determination of social mobility and the skill premium. We first show that our model captures the empirical co-movement of the skill...

This paper undertakes a normative investigation of the quantitative properties of optimal tax smoothing in a business cycle model with state contingent debt, capital-skill complementarity, endogenous skill formation and stochastic shocks to public consumption as well as total factor and capital...

This paper analyses optimal income taxes over the business cycle under a balanced-budget restriction, for low, middle and high income households. A model incorporating capital-skill complementarity in production and differential access to capital and labour markets is de-veloped to capture the...

This paper develops an incomplete markets model with state dependent (Markovian) stochastic earnings processes and ex ante skill heterogeneity corresponding to being university educated or not. Using the Wealth and Assets Survey for Great Britain, we find that the university educated group has...

We develop a theoretical framework where the cross-sectional distributions of hours, earnings, wealth and consumption are determined jointly with a set of expenditure targets defining peer and aspirational pressure for members of different social classes. We show existence of a stationary...

Incomplete markets models imply heterogeneous household savings behaviour which in turn generates pecuniary externalities via the interest rate. Conditional on differences in the processes determining household earnings for distinct groups in the population, these savings externalities may...