We explore how outcomes of trade policy retaliation (Nash tariff games) are affected when trade simultaneously takes places geographically across countries and through time via financial intermediation. In such models deficits and surpluses in goods trade are endogenously determined, and...

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 article studies the equivalence between labor and consumption taxes in a stochastic context, where the government can undertake an active portfolio management strategy by investing in both risk-free and risky assets. Using a two-period model we show that such taxes let consumers make the...

The paper provides a tractable, analytical framework to study regulatory risk. Regulatory risk is captured by uncertainty about the policy variables in the regulator's objective function: weights attached to profits and costs of public funds. Results are as follows: 1) The regulator's reaction...

In this article, we analyze Auerbach's (1991) proposal of a retrospective capital gains tax, which is equivalent to an accrual tax on an ex-ante basis. Using a continuous-time model with stochastic interest rates, we prove that equivalence holds even if the risk-free asset return is correlated...

In a multi-country general equilibrium economy with mobile capital and rigid-wage unemployment, countries may differ in capital endowments, production technologies and rigid wages. Governments tax capital at the source to maximize national welfare. They account for tax base responses to their...

Using a German firm-level data set, this paper is the first to jointly study the cyclical properties of the cross-sections of firm-level real value added and Solow residual innovations, as well as capital and employment adjustment. We find two new business cycle facts: 1) The cross-sectional...

This paper analyzes the welfare effects of the Italian social security system in an economy with uncertainty on wages, financial market returns and life expectancy. The introduction of a pension system reproducing the Italian statutory scheme turns out to decrease ex-ante individual welfare,...