The Ramsey approach to optimal taxation and Ramsey tax rules have amassed substance in economic theory. However, they are often criticized on grounds of practicality, fairness, feasibility and some other aspects of designing actual tax policy. This paper presents a collection of these views; it...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model of imperfect competition where a sunk cost of creating a new product regulates the type of entry that dominates in the economy: new products or more competition in existing industries. Considering the process of product innovation is irreversible,...

In this paper we show that in a two sector economy with heterogeneous agents and competitive markets, in a steady state the optimal capital income tax rate is in general different from zero. The optimal tax policy in this setting depends on the relative price difference. In a two sector economy...

We extend the celebrated Chamley-Judd result of zero capital income tax and show that the steady state optimal capital income tax is nonzero, in general. In particular, we find that the optimal plan involves zero capital income tax in investment sector and a nonzero capital income tax in...

We provide a welfare based interpretation of the capital tax ambiguity result (due to Guo & Lansing, 1999). We show that the sign ambiguity of optimal capital tax rate in an imperfectly competitive economy is mainly due to the welfare cost of investment. The substitution and income effects of...

Evidence of declining trend in OECD economies' income tax rates and the concern of enhancing competition in the US and the EU product markets subtly motivate the question if low income tax rates are optimal in an imperfectly competitive economy. This paper examines optimal income tax policy in a...

In this paper we calibrate the social cost of optimal taxes in a class of imperfectly competitive economies and examine the correspondence of this social cost with the number of tax instruments and the number and the sources of distortions. We calibrate the Ramsey equilibrium for three standard...

The paper presents an econometric accounting of the effective corporate tax rate in Australia for the years 1993 to 1996. The estimation is a panel of Australian firms that uses a specially gathered financial data base. Using fixed and random effects, the model specifies that the statutory tax...

This paper explores the link between default risk and fiscal procyclicality. We show that countries with higher sovereign risk have a more procyclical fiscal expenditure policy, which is driven mostly by transfers. We build a small open economy model with income inequality, social transfers, and...

We construct a macro DSGE model of the eurozone and its two main regions, the North and the South, with the aim of matching the macro facts of these economies by indirect inference and using the resulting empirically-based model to assess possible new policy regimes. The model we have found to...