We study experimentally how taxpayers choose between two tax regimes to fund a public good. The first-best tax regime imposes a general, distortion-free income tax. However, this tax cannot be enforced. The second-best alternative supplements the income tax by a specific commodity tax. This tax...

We study experimentally how taxpayers choose between two tax regimes to fund a public good. The first-best tax regime imposes a general, distortion-free income tax. However, this tax cannot be enforced. The second-best alternative supplements the income tax by a specific commodity tax. This tax...

We study experimentally how taxpayers choose between two tax regimes to fund a public good. The first-best tax regime imposes a general, distortion-free income tax. However, this tax cannot be enforced. The second-best alternative supplements the income tax by a specific commodity tax. This tax...

We give an account of an overlapping-generations experiment with multiple families in which voluntary transfers can take the form of support to the elderly or grants to children. Support to the old is a purely intergenerational (intra-family) transfer, whereas grants to children also involve an...

In an overlapping generations experiment with multiple families participants can support their parents directly and thereby reduce their tax burden or rely on tax-financed old-age support. State productivity is captured by the factor with which total tax revenues are multiplied to determine...