This paper examines the appropriate tax treatment of the family in a series of analytical models and numerical examples. For a population of taxpaying couples which differ in earning capacity, we derive the optimal tax rates for each potential earner. These rates depend crucially upon own and...

This paper examines the appropriate tax treatment of the family in a series of analytical models and numerical examples. For a population of taxpaying couples which differ in earning capacity, we derive the optimal tax rates for each potential earner. These rates depend crucially upon own and...

The purpose of the present note is to explore the structure of optimal income taxation/redistribution in an economy where the welfare of individuals depends in part on relative after-tax consumption, i.e., we specify individual welfare as a function of absolute and relative after-tax...

Given that application of the principle with full loss offset to all assets is impracticable, we may wish to consider provision of only a partial inflation-exclusion to assets for which it is feasible. The problem is examined in this paper by means of a simple model of anticipated inflation, in...

The purpose of the present paper is to focus on the potential inducement to retire earlier in the presence of social security and on the implied effects on lifetime savings. This problem is analyzed within the framework of a model of intertemporal utility maximization. The organization of this...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a progress report on the issue of the implications of optimal tax theory and recent econometric evidence for tax policy. Toward this end, Section 2 provides a brief and often heuristic summary of the major results of optimal tax theory. Section 3 reports...

After exploring both the crucial role of the interest elasticity of the saving rate in the analysis of a wide variety of issues in economic - particularly tax - policy and reasons why previous studies of the effect of interest rates on consumption and saving have biased the estimated elasticity...

Section 1 presents a preliminary attempt at clarifying the ways in which taxes affect human capital accumulation. Section 2 outlines a simple general equilibrium model with two capital goods - physical and human â€" and the saving corresponding to each, to begin to deal with these issues....

One of the most striking features of the postwar U.S. economy has been the rapid decrease in the labor force participation of the elderly at a time when the health of this group has been improving. In spite of this, previous research, based on retrospective interviews with the retired...

The Traditional View (TV) of large deficits and debt is they have large economic costs, save in a recession and early recovery, because they crowd out investment and lower future income, and taken to extremes, can cause inflation and even a financial crisis. The TV has been challenged, most...