This paper concerns the optimal provision of a state-variable public good, where the global climate is the prime example. The analysis is based on a two-type optimal income tax model with overlapping generations, where people care about their relative consumption. We consider both...

This paper analyzes optimal differential commodity taxation, together with optimal nonlinear income taxation, in order to deal with positional preferences. It also derives the optimal public provision of private goods both when differential commodity taxation is feasible and when it is not. It...

During the latest decades, household mortgage loans have increased substantially in many countries. We develop an OLG model where housing is a positional consumption good (such that housing choices are partly driven by relative consumption concerns), and where the consumers are also...

This paper deals with optimal income taxation and relative consumption under a welfarist government that fully respects people’s preferences and a paternalist government that does not share the consumer preference for relative consumption. Consistent with previous findings, relative...

This paper analyzes whether marginal taxation of labor and capital income might be useful second best instruments for internalizing the externalities caused by conspicuous housing consumption, when the government is unable to implement a first best corrective tax on housing wealth. The rationale...

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 paper concerns optimal nonlinear taxation in an OLG model with two ability-types, where people care about their own consumption relative to (i) other people’s current consumption, (ii) own past consumption, and (iii) other people’s past consumption. We show that intertemporal...

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 analyzes the consequences of lobby group activity for policy outcomes in economies with transboundary pollution and international environmental policies. In our framework, international environmental policies are characterized as pollution taxes determined in a negotiation between two...

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers on job turnover, productivity and state-local finance.<p> Paper [I] deals with the determinants of the rate of job turnover defined as the change in distribution of employment between and within industries in Swedish manufacturing. The rate of...</p>