Paternalism, merit goods and specific egalitarianism are concepts we sometimes meet in the literature. The thing in common is that the policy maker does not fully respect the consumer sovereignty principle and designs policies according to some other criterion than individuals? preferences....

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 develop and estimate a microeconometric model of household labour supply in four European countries representative of different economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom. We then simulate, under the constraint of constant total net tax revenue...

This paper reviews the literature on optimal taxation of labour income and the empirical work on labour supply and the elasticity of taxable income in Sweden. It also presents an overview of Swedish taxation of labour income, offers calculations on the development in effective marginal tax rates...

There is clear evidence that fairness plays a role in redistribution. Individuals want to compensate others for their misfortune, while they allow them to enjoy the fruits of their effort. This paper introduces fairness in a tax-benefit scheme that is based on several characteristics in order to...

Because of the upswing in electronic commerce via the Internet, governments in the European Union and the United States have been discussing the shaping of an effective system of turnover taxation in cyberspace since the late 1990s, but have failed to agree on a definite tax system. An analysis...

Die anhaltend hohe Arbeitslosigkeit hat verstärkt zu Diskussionen geführt, ob das Steuer-Transfer-System hierfür mitverantwortlich sei. Dabei wurde insbesondere auf die sehr hohe implizite Grenzbelastung im untersten Einkommensbereich hingewiesen. Als Alternativen wurden eine negative...

Die anhaltend hohe Arbeitslosigkeit hat verstärkt zu Diskussionen geführt, ob das Steuer-Transfer-System hierfür mitverantwortlich sei. Dabei wurde insbesondere auf die sehr hohe implizite Grenzbelastung im untersten Einkommensbereich hingewiesen. Als Alternativen wurden eine negative...

The paper discusses various possible approaches to turnover taxation in cyberspace. It shows that the main challenge of the new economy is to effectively cope with B2C international trade in digital online goods and services. However, most approaches to turnover taxation discussed in the...

Paternalism, merit goods and specific egalitarianism are concepts we sometimes meet in the literature. The thing in common is that the policy maker does not fully respect the consumer sovereignty principle and design policies according to some other criterion than individuals' preferences. Using...