This paper re-examines the question of whether federal ex-post redistribution in terms of public funds leads to under-provision of public goods by adding the assumption that the member states are free to leave the economic federation. We show that federal ex-post redistribution no longer...

This paper shows how the first-best and second-best rules for optimal public good provision depend on the adaptation to private and public consumption. Adaptation in private consumption typically leads to over-provision relative to the Samuelson condition, while adaptation in public consumption...

This paper concerns optimal taxation and public goods in an economic federation with decentralized leadership, where one lower level government is first mover also in the horizontal dimension. Under plausible assumptions, horizontal leadership reinforces the incentives created by decentralized...

This paper derives Pareto efficient policy rules for the provision of national as well as global public goods in a two-country world, where each individual cares about relative consumption within as well as between countries. Furthermore, we compare these policy rules with those that follow from...

This paper deals with the optimal provision of a state-variable public good in a two-type model, when the consumers have present-biased preferences due to quasi-hyperbolic discounting. The results show that the preference for immediate gratification facing the (mimicking) high-ability type...

Previous studies on public policy under relative consumption concerns have ignored the role of leisure comparisons. This paper considers a two-type optimal nonlinear income tax model where people care both about their relative consumption and their relative leisure. Increased consumption...

This chapter concerns welfare measurement in economies, where the government raises revenue by means of distortionary taxation. A major issue is the treatment of (state-variable) public goods in the context of social accounting. Although the marginal value that the government attaches to a...

Almost all previous studies on public policy under relative consumption concerns have ignored the role of leisure for status comparisons. Inspired by Veblen (1899), this paper considers a two-type optimal income tax model, where people care about their relative consumption, and where the...

This paper concerns optimal redistributive income taxation and provision of a public input good in a two-type model with a minimum wage policy implemented for the low-ability type, where firms may use some of their resources for outsourcing by locating part of the production process abroad. Our...

Earlier literature on tax competition and policy coordination typically assumes that the labor market is competitive; a description less suitable for Europe, where trade unions have had a strong position in the labor market for a long time. This paper concerns factor income taxation and public...