The central result of this paper is that when moral hazard ispresent,competitive equilibrium is almost always (constrained) inefficient. Moral hazard causes shadow prices to deviate from market prices. To remedy this market failure, the government could introduce differential commodity taxation....

This paper establishes that, far from being able to derive the principle of horizontal equity from utilitarianism, the principle is actually in- consistent with utilitarianism in a variety of circumstances. We derive conditions under which (a) it is optimal to impose random tax schedules (ex...

This paper shows that there is a presumption that Pareto efficient taxation entails a positive tax on capital. When tax and expenditure policies can affect the market distribution of income in ways that cannot be directly offset, those effects need to be taken into account, reducing the burden...

The optimal income taxation problem has been extensively studied in one- period models. When consumers work for many periods, this paper analyzes what information, if any, that the government learns about abilities in one period can be used in later periods to attain more redistribution than in...

This paper shows that there is a presumption that Pareto efficient taxation entails a positive tax on capital. When tax and expenditure policies can affect the market distribution of income in ways that cannot be directly offset, those effects need to be taken into account, reducing the burden...

The optimal income taxation problem has been extensively studied in one-period models. This paper analyzes optimal income taxation when consumers work for many periods. We also analyze what information, if any, that the government learns about abilities in one period can be used in later periods...

Oates and Schwab (1988) consider an economy with mobil capital and jurisdictions that suffer from local pollution. They show that welfare-maximizing jurisdictions implement the first-best, if they take prices as given and have at their disposal a capital tax and an environmental standard....

For more than a hundred years, economists have attempted to show that progressive taxation can be justified on more fundamental principles. Among the earliest of such attempts was that of Edgeworth (1868, 1897), who tried to show that utilitarianism (combined with two other assumptions) implied...

The central result of this paper is that when moral hazard ispresent,competitive equilibrium is almost always (constrained) inefficient. Moral hazard causes shadow prices to deviate from market prices. To remedy this market failure, the government could introduce differential commodity taxation....