This paper provides an analytical review of the evaluation of alternative time streams of consumption and the closely related concept of time preference. The potential sensitivity of comparisons, especially to the choice of time preference rate and elasticity of marginal valuation, is...

This paper derives a convenient method of calculating an approximation to the optimal tax rate in a linear income tax structure. Individuals are assumed to have Cobb-Douglas preferences and the wage rate distribution is lognormal. First, the optimal tax rate is shown, for a general form of...

This paper provides estimates of individual and aggregate revenue elasticities of income and consumption taxes in New Zealand, based on the 2001 tax structure and expenditure patterns. Using analytical expressions for revenue elasticities at the individual and aggregate levels, together with a...

This paper investigates the use of sample reweighting, in a behavioural tax microsimulation model, to examine the implications for government taxes and expenditure of population ageing in Australia. First, a calibration approach to sample reweighting is described, producing new weights that...

This paper examines the computation of welfare measures for use with labour supply models. The standard method of computing compensating and equivalent variations does not allow sufficiently for the nonlinearity of the budget constraint in such models. An alternative method is suggested and...

This paper examines the effect on a measure of social welfare of an in-work payment, involving a discontinuity at an hours threshold. Social welfare is defined in terms of individuals' utilities, which depend on leisure and net income. The in-work payment augments a modified minimum income...

This paper investigates the effects on labour supply, consumption and savings of a change in the superannuation tax structure, involving the taxation of contributions to a fund, pre-retirement earnings of the fund, and the benefits received from the fund during retirement. The effects on...

Reductions in carbon dioxide emissions can come from (among other things) changes to the structure of final demands, changes in the use of fossil fuels by industry, and changes to the structure of inter-industry transactions. This paper examines the nature of the least disruptive changes, that...