Researchers characterizing optimal tax policies for dynamic economies have reasoned that optimally chosen tax rates should approximately follow a random walk. We conduct a frequency-domain examination of the properties of the tax rate series and conclude that while there is a substantial...

Taxation and risk taking are examined in a general equilibrium model that incorporates uncertain government revenue in a nonrestrictive manner and allows the government to influence its revenue through portfolio investments as well as through tax policy. It is demonstrated that each of a wide...

This paper examines the incidence of commodity taxes, finding that, when demand and marginal cost schedules are linear. the burden of commodity taxation is distributed between buyers and sellers so that each suffers the same percentage reduction on pre-tax surplus. This equiproportionate...

In the overlapping generations model with uncertain lifetimes, efficient life insurance markets and no operative intergenerational gift and bequest motive, a positive birth rate has been shown to be sufficient and necessary for absence of debt neutrality: equilibrium prices and quantities are...

This paper derives analytical measures of the combined effects of tax changes and adjustment costs on investment and market value. Unlike earlier measures, the effective tax rate derived is valid in the presence of adjustment costs and anticipated tax changes. The derived measure of the impact...

This paper explores the implications of tax rate uncertainty, identifying circumstances in which revenue-neutral tax rate variability increases profitability, economic activity, and the efficiency of resource allocation. Furthermore, with heterogeneous taxpayers, tax rate variability is shown to...

In economic analyses of the effects of tax policies, one commonly encounters discussions of the equivalence of apparently different policies, where equivalence is defined as the policies having the same impact on fundamental economic outcomes. These related tax policies may differ in many...

In this paper, we suggest a method which enables the user to identify commodities that all individuals who can agree on certain weak assumptions with regard to the social welfare function will agree upon as worth subsidizing or taxing in the absence of efficiency considerations. The method is...

This paper encompasses multiple sources of inefficiency introduced by the U.S. tax system into a single general equilibrium model. Using disaggregate calculations of user cost, we measure interasset distortions from the differential taxation of many types of assets. Simultaneously, we model the...

This paper develops an asset price approach to the analysis of capital taxation. The costs of adjusting capital stocks cause tax changes to have important impacts on the valuation of existing capital. The recapitalizations associated with tax reforms represent an important aspect of their...