We study the interdependence of optimal tax and expenditure policies. An optimal policy requires that information on preferences is made available. We first study this problem from a general mechanism design perspective and show that efficiency is possible only if the individuals who decide on...

We introduce intention-based social preferences into a mechanism design framework with independent private values and quasilinear payoffs. For the case where the designer has no information about the intensity of social preferences, we provide conditions under which mechanisms which have been...

We study political competition in an environment in which voters have private information about their preferences. Our framework covers models of income taxation, public-goods provision or publicly provided private goods. Politicians are vote-share-maximizers. They can propose any policy that is...

We introduce intention-based social preferences into mechanism design. We explore information structures that dier with respect to what is commonly known about the weight that agents attach to reciprocal kindness. When the designer has no information on reciprocity types, implementability of an...

We introduce intention-based social preferences into a Bayesian mechanism design framework. We first show that, under common knowledge of social preferences, any tension between material efficiency, incentive compatibility, and voluntary participation can be resolved. Hence, famous impossibility...

Tax competition between two governments who choose nonlinear income tax schedules to maximize the average utility of their residents when skills are unobservable and labor is perfectly mobile is examined. We show that there are no equilibria in which there is a skill type that pays positive...