Heterogeneity is likely to be an important determinant of the shape of optimal tax schemes. This article addresses the issue in a model à la Mirrlees with a continuum of agents. The agents differ in their productivities and opportunity costs of work, but their labor supplies depend only on a...

This paper documents the key stylised facts underlying the evolution of labour supply at the extensive and intensive margins in the last forty years in three countries: United-States, United-Kingdom and France. We develop a statistical decomposition that provides bounds on changes at the...

This paper suggests a method for estimating the distribution of discount rates using panel data on income and wealth. Using the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA), a representative sample of the English popularion over age 50, we general panel date on total consumption from the...

A model of labour supply is developed in which individuals face restrictions on hours choices. Observed hours reflect both the distribution of preferences and the distribution of offers. In this framework the choice set is limited and observed hours may not appear to satisfy the revealed...

A model of labour supply is developed in which individuals face restrictions on hours choices. Observed hours reflect both the distribution of preferences and the distribution of offers. In this framework the choice set is limited and observed hours may not satisfy the revealed preference...

This paper documents the heterogeneity in labor market volatility across ages and gender in the United States over 1976-2014. We separate fluctuations in hours worked into fluctuations in the average number of hours per worker (the intensive margin) and fluctuations in the number of individuals...

In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows the first best rules. This note lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which this property holds in a variety of setups. -- separability ; second best optimality ; indirect taxes ; Samuelson...

We study optimal taxation in the general extensive model: the only decision of the participants in the economy is to choose between working (full time) or staying inactive. People differ in their productivities and in other features which determine their work opportunity costs. The qualitative...

Consider a simple general equilibrium economy with one representative consumer, a single competitive firm and the government. Suppose that the government has to finance public expenditures using linear consumption taxes and/or a lump-sum tax on profits redistributed to the consumer. We show...

We study a general model of occupational choice and optimal income taxation where agents have private cost of work that differ across occupations and have both deterministic and random components. We apply our framework to study the work decisions of couples in an extensive set up and give...