We set up a simple political economy model where economic integration raises the profitability of multinational firms. In this setting redistributive taxation may rise following economic integration, if the effects of the widened income gap dominate the higher excess burden of the tax.

The rise in foreign direct investment and the increasing activity of multinational firms expose national corporate tax bases to cross-country profit shifting, but also lead to rising profitability of the corporate sector. We incorporate these two effects of economic integration into a simple...

We show in a two-period world with endogenous savings and two assets, one of them exhibiting a stochastic return, that an interest-adjusted income tax is optimal. This tax leaves a riskless component of interest income tax free and taxes the excess return with a special tax rate. There is no...

In many situations governments have sector-specific tax and regulation policies at their disposal to influence the market outcome after a national or an international merger has taken place. In this paper we study the implications for merger policy when countries non-cooperatively deploy...

We develop a model of education where individuals face educational risk. Successfully entering the skilled labor sector depends on individual effort in education and public resources, but educational risk still causes (income) inequality. We show that an optimal public policy consists of...

In a model with ex-ante homogenous households, earnings risk and a general earnings function, we derive the optimal linear labor tax rate and optimal linear education subsidies. The optimal income tax trades off social insurance against incentives to work and to invest in human capital....

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on labor income and savings in a standard two-period life-cycle model with endogenous leisure demands in both periods and non-insurable income risks. Households are subject to skill shocks in both periods of the life-cycle. We allow for completely general...

We analyze whether a redistributive government should provide ex ante insurance against unfortunate outcomes or whether it should instead rely on transfers for redistributing income ex post. To this end, we develop a model of education in which individuals face educational risk and wage...

In many situations governments have sector-specific tax and regulation policies at their disposal to influence the market outcome after a national or an international merger has taken place. In this paper we study the implications for merger policy when countries non-cooperatively deploy...