This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive tax schedule in a matching unemployment framework with endogenous (voluntary) nonparticipation and (involuntary) unemployment. The optimal employment tax rate is given by an inverse employment elasticity rule. This rule depends on the global...

Recent discussions about rising inequality in industrialized countries have triggered calls for more government intervention and redistribution. Due to obvious behavioral effects caused by redistribution, it is however not clear whether redistributional policies are indeed able to combat...

This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive taxation when individuals are heterogeneous in two exogenous dimensions: their skills and their values of non-market activities. Search-matching frictions on the labor markets create unemployment. Wages, labor demand and participation are...

This paper characterizes optimal income taxation when individuals respond along both the intensive and extensive margins. Individuals are heterogeneous across two dimensions: specifically, their skill and disutility of participation. Preferences over consumption and work effort can differ with...

We propose a canonical model of optimal nonlinear redistributive taxation with matching unemployment. In our model, agents are endowed with different skill levels and labor markets are perfectly segmented by skill. The government only observes negotiated wages. More progressive taxation leads to...

We consider a case where some of the parents have higher ability to raise children than others. First-best policy gives both types of parents the same level of utility. If parental actions are not fully observable, however, the policy maker has to take into account the incentive-compatibility...

In this paper fiscal policy is examined for an open economy characterised by unemployment due to efficiency wages. We allow for capital and firm mobility in a model where the government chooses the level of wage, source-based capital and profit taxation. The taxing choices of governments are...

This study examines optimal taxation in a unionized economy in which households save capital. The main findings are as follows. Judd?s (1985) and Chamley?s (1986) classical results of zero taxation on capital income holds. This is true independently of workers? savings behaviour or the...

We consider a model of prejudice-driven discrimination, where the advantaged 'tall' discriminate against the disadvantaged 'short'. We employ an egalitarian social welfare function to compare anti-discrimination legal rules with a non-discriminatory ('height-blind') income tax.

Economists traditionally tackle normative problems by computing optimal policy, i.e. the one that maximizes a social welfare function. In practice, however, a succession of marginal changes to a limited number of policy instruments are implemented, until no further improvement is feasible. I...