Individuals in most all countries face a wide range of direct taxes on their income, especially variants of the individual income tax and payroll taxes. For the income tax, attempts are often made to reduce the compliance and administrative costs of the tax by using presumptive, or simplified,...

Are there still opportunities for welfare-improving reforms in unfunded pension systems? To answer this question, we analyze the intertemporal structure of implicit taxes in pay-as-you-go pension schemes. We demonstrate that these tax rates are declining over the life cycle. This timing is...

We derive an ex post neutral comprehensive income tax on pension schemes equivalent to a Johansson-Samuelson tax that guarantees nondiscriminatory treatment of lifetime-dependent and other investments. By separately taxing contributions and benefits, our concept does not require any assumptions...

This paper extends the Diamond overlapping-generations model with pay-as-you-go social security by allowing for variable retirement age and for distortionary taxation of earnings and interest income. The tax rates are shown to depend on whether or not debt policy is available, and on the...

A model is presented for simulating the level of taxes imposed on highly skilled labor. The effective average tax rate, defined as the relative wedge between employment costs and disposable income, is computed. Income and payroll taxes and social security contributions not yielding an equivalent...

It appears that the debate in the US regarding "fundamental tax reform", commonly defined as replacing the existing corporate and individual income tax system with some form of consumption-based taxation, is about to resume in earnest. At the current time, however, the chances for passage of...

Andreoni (1993) has shown in an experimental study that crowding out is incomplete when an involuntary lump-sum tax is levied exogenously on individuals to finance the provision of a public good. In this paper, we (i) replicate Andreoni's experimental conditions, and (ii) introduce treatments...

This paper analyzes differences between shadow economic activities in the western and eastern part of Germany. Due to new empirical results easterners' engagement in shadow economic activities seems to be lower than the engagement of their western neighbors. How can we explain this seemingly...

We study the effects of distortionary labor taxation on endogenous cycles and the indeterminacy of equilibria in an overlapping-generations model with a balanced-budget rule. Under proportional taxation there is a critical tax rate above which cycles vanish, while with linearly progressive...

This paper analyzes the effects on the growth rate and economic welfare if the social planner engages in selfish behavior. These effects are dis-played in a model of endogenous growth with productive governmental spending. The budget maximizing social planner determines how the public input is...