By inverting Saez (2002)’s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize theredistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal)social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time andshow great stability despite...

This paper characterizes optimal income taxation when individuals respond along both theintensive and extensive margins. Individuals are heterogeneous across two dimensions:specifically, their skill and disutility of participation. Preferences over consumption and workeffort can differ with...

We build a theoretical model to study whether a minimum wage can be welfare-improving if itis implemented in conjunction with an optimized nonlinear income tax. We consider this issuein a framework where search frictions on the labor market generate unemployment. Workersdiffer in productivity...

In a recent paper Loeffler/Schneider (2000) showed that introducing a tax on a financial market does not create an arbitrage opportunity...

In their book The Power to Tax, Brennan and Buchanan have pointed to a central weakness of the traditional theory of public finance and especially of the theory of optimal taxation: This approach overlooked the problem of governmental power and the tendency of this power to be abused. It was...

The recent automobile liability insurance crisis in Atlantic Canada has prorupted the four provincial legislations (Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) to setup a task force to redesign, if necessary, the personal automobile insurance system. After...

This paper asks whether tax cycles can represent the optimal policy in a model without any extrinsic uncertainty. I show, in an economy without capital and where labor is the only choicevariable (a Lucas-Stokey economy), that a large class of preferences exists, where cycles are optimal, as well...