Despite the frequency of tax changes and their potential importance to investors, almost all of the analysis of tax-based investment incentives assumes investors never anticipate any tax changes. We depart from this approach by analyzing the historical pattern of U.S. corporate investment...

This paper analyzes features of perfect taxation also known as optimal taxation when one or more private markets is imperfectly competitive. Governments with perfect information and access to lump-sum taxes can provide corrective subsidies that render outcomes efficient in the presence of...

The taxation of corporate assets is well understood to influence investment and firm valuation. This paper explores the consequences of postwar U.S. tax changes in a dynamic model which incorporates costs of adjustment and investor expectations of future tax reforms and macroeconomic...

This paper analyzes the distortions created by taxation and the features of tax systems that minimize such distortions (subject to achieving other government objectives). It starts with a review of the theory and practice of deadweight loss measurement, followed by characterizations of optimal...

The empirical literature that seeks to measure the effective tax rate on new investment offers a striking paradox. On the one hand, summary measures of the effective tax rate on new investment are normally quite high. On the other hand, the amount of revenue actually collected from taxing...

The U.S. income tax has long been recognized as a hybrid of an income and consumption tax, with elements that do not fit naturally into either pure system. The precise nature of this hybrid has important policy implications for, among other things, understanding the impact of moving closer to a...

The U.S. income tax has long been recognized as a hybrid of an income and consumption tax, with elements that do not fit naturally into either pure system. The precise nature of this hybrid has important policy implications for, among other things, understanding the impact of moving closer to a...