This paper examines the optimal allocation of tax revenue among a universal transfer payment, a pure public good and expenditure on education. Using a single-period framework, education expenditure raises the productivity of individuals via a human capital production function. The social welfare...

This paper presents two 'non-welfarist' approaches and one 'welfarist' approach to decompose changes in inequality and social welfare into three components. We distinguish the contributions of population, tax policy and labour supply behavioural effects. As an illustration, we decompose changes...

This paper examines the question of whether indirect tax rates should be uniform, using four different modelling strategies. First, marginal tax reform is examined. This is concerned with the optimal direction of small changes in effective indirect tax rates and requires considerably less...

It is important for the design of tax policy to be able to measure reliably the income elasticity of tax revenue. This gives the extent to which tax revenues change as a result of a change in earnings. Analytical expressions for income tax revenue elasticities treat earnings as exogenous, so...

This paper examines the effects on consumer prices of a range of carbon taxes in New Zealand, using information about inter-industry transactions and the use of fossil fuels by industries. The resulting effects on the welfare of different household types and total expenditure levels are...

The 'excess burden' of taxation represents an efficiency loss which must be compared with any perceived gains arising either from income redistribution or the non-transfer expenditure carried out by the government. An important property is that, under certain assumptions, it increases...