Studies of inequality often ignore resource allocation within the household. In doing so they miss an important element of the distribution of welfare that can vary dramatically depending on overall environmental and economic factors. Thus, measures of inequality that ignore intra household...

This paper examines the appropriate tax treatment of the family in a series of analytical models and numerical examples. For a population of taxpaying couples which differ in earning capacity, we derive the optimal tax rates for each potential earner. These rates depend crucially upon own and...