This paper concerns optimal taxation and outsourcing. If the government has a direct instrument for taxing outsourcing, the policy rules for marginal income taxation remain as in the standard model. Otherwise, outsourcing contributes to a more progressive income tax structure.

This paper deals with optimal income taxation under international outsourcing and FDI. We show how the joint effect of outsourcing and FDI on the optimal marginal income tax rates depends on whether FDI is horizontal or vertical.

This paper analyzes optimal differential commodity taxation, together with optimal nonlinear income taxation, in order to deal with positional preferences. It also derives the optimal public provision of private goods both when differential commodity taxation is feasible and when it is not. It...

This paper derives Pareto efficient policy rules for the provision of national as well as global public goods in a two-country world, where each individual cares about relative consumption within as well as between countries. Furthermore, we compare these policy rules with those that follow from...

The optimal provision of a state-variable public good, where the global climate is the prime example, is analyzed in a model where people care about their relative consumption. We consider both keeping-up-with-the-Joneses preferences (where people compare their own current consumption with...

Much evidence suggests that between-country social comparisons have become more important over time due to globalization. This paper analyzes optimal income taxation in a multi-country economy, where consumers derive utility from their relative consumption compared with both other domestic...