Equity issues of the dual income tax (DIT) have until recently been left aside in the field of economics. Since a dual income tax needs different modeling from that for a comprehensive one, this paper offers firstly a quantitative framework to measure redistributive effects; it turns out that...

How is the optimal level of Pigouvian taxation influenced by distributive concerns? With second-best instruments, a higher level of income redistribution calls for a lower level of Pigouvian taxation. More redistribution implies higher distortions from income taxation. Pigouvian tax revenues...

This paper studies the design of indirect redistributive taxation and of corrective taxation in the presence of status goods, allowing for the possibility that illegal copies of those goods may be purchased on black markets (the phenomenon of piracy). Heavy taxation of status goods, despite the...

An empirically based simulation model consisting of a representative consumer is constructed and calibrated, for the purpose of finding optimal commodity taxes for Norway. The model includes endogenous labor supply and cross-border shopping. Focusing on commodities exposed to cross-border...

Over the last few years concern for income inequality in Europe has increased remarkably. In this context, taxation is an important redistributive instrument, and we investigate the redistributive role of direct taxes. We focus on the EU-15 countries and the evolution over the period 1998-2008,...

Is it a sheer coincidence that the egalitarian Scandinavian countries have significantly larger government employment shares than the much less egalitarian United States? A positive correlation between equality and government employment share in the OECD indicates that it is not a coincidence....

The effects of personal income tax changes are usually analyzed by comparing the inequality of income distributions before and after the tax policy change on a fixed pretax income distribution. This constant-population methodology aims at isolating the "pure" redistributive effect of the tax...

This paper derives and examines the provision rule for public inputs within a two-class framework of optimal income taxation. If income redistribution policies must be designed under a self-selection constraint because the ability of any particular worker is private information, public input...

This paper presents a general-equilibrium model of environmental tax reform that introduces a health status depending on environmental quality and medical consumption, and tax deductions for medical expenditure. It distinguishes between two types of health effect: environmentally and medically...

We investigate how continental European unemployment can be reduced without reducing unemployment benefits and without reducing the net income of low-wage earners. Lower unemployment replacement rates reduce unemployment, the net wage, and unemployment benefits. A lower tax on labor increases...