This paper studies the efficiency effects of granting deductions for work-related expenses. It is shown that much depends on whether the expenses are required for increasing taxable income and on whether the expenses are social costs. Among the noteworthy results are the following. Expenses for...

The usual arguments pro destination-based, consumption-oriented or pro origin-based, production-oriented VAT are found wanting. They largely ignore tax effects on locational choices of firms. This paper provides a comparison of consumption and production taxation within a model of firm and...

Taxing internationally mobile factors of production has been dismissed as an inefficient means of raising tax revenue. This paper addresses the question of whether it is efficient to tax capital at source when labor markets and the taxation of lumpsum income suffer from imperfections. Four...

Many democracies have public health insurance systems that are tax-financed or in which contributions are linked to income. In a recent issue of this journal, Mathias Kifmann provides a model designed to explain this intriguing observation. This comment argues that the suggested explanation is...

Homburg (1990 and 1992) shows that the existence of productive land prevents an economy from being dynamically inefficient. The result is extended to a world with uncertain labour income. It is shown that PAYG social security fails to be Pareto improving on almost all paths of economic growth....