This paper examines an infinite-horizon model of dynamic nonlinear income taxation in which there exists a small probability that the government cannot commit to its future tax policy. In this "loose commitment" environment, we find that even a little uncertainty over whether the government can...

An important question in the literature on charitable contributions is the extent to which tax-financed contributions by the government crowd out private contributions. This paper examines a simple model of charitable contributions in which there exist both warm-glow and public good motives for...

Recent empirical research has found that high-skill individuals tend to be less risk averse than low-skill individuals, which implies that their respective constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) utility functions have different curvature. This paper examines the effects of this form of...

This paper examines a dynamic model of nonlinear income taxation in which the government cannot commit to its future tax policy, and individuals are quasi-hyperbolic discounters who cannot commit to future consumption plans. The government uses its taxation powers to maximise a utilitarian...

This paper addresses questions of the following nature: under what conditions does a welfare-improving reform of the existing piecewise linear income tax schedule necessitate a change in a particular agent type's marginal tax rate? Our analysis therefore addresses the sorts of questions...

This paper examines a two-period model of optimal nonlinear income taxation with learning-by-doing, in which second-period wages are an increasing function of first-period labour supply. We consider the cases when the government can and cannot commit to its second-period tax policy. In both...

This paper addresses questions of the following nature: under what conditions does a welfare-improving reform of a nonlinear income tax system necessitate a change in a particular agent's marginal tax rate or total tax burden? Our analysis is therefore a study in tax reform, rather than in...

This paper examines a model of charitable contributions in which there exist both warm-glow and public good motives for giving, but where the warm-glow motive is competitive in the sense that individuals evaluate their own contribution relative to that of their peers. In this setting, it is...

This paper shows that tax reform techniques are well-suited to an examination of the Laffer argument, i.e., the possibility that an increase in a tax rate may reduce tax revenues (and vice versa). Our methodology allows us to examine the Laffer argument directly, without deriving the Laffer...