This paper examines the tax schedule for low income families with children. We take an optimal tax approach based on a structural labour supply model which incorporates unobserved heterogeneity, fixed costs of work, childcare costs and the detailed non-convexities of the tax and transfer system....

This articles studies the optimal tax mix (taxes on income and commodities) under asymmetric information in a two-type model, when individuals make relative consumption comparisons. The model includes both positional and nonpositional goods, taking into account the fact that relative concerns...

This article incorporates tax evasion into an optimum taxation framework with individuals differing in earning abilities and initial wealth. We find that despite the possibility of its evasion a tax on initial wealth should supplement the optimal nonlinear income tax, given a positive...

This paper extends the previous literature on optimal redistributive taxation in the presence of externalities to a multi-externality setting. While taxes on income and on 'clean' commodities are still unaffected by the externalities, which confirms previous results, I find that the existence of...

This paper computes the optimal progressivity of the income tax code in a dynamic general equilibrium model with household heterogeneity in which uninsurable labor productivity risk gives rise to a nontrivial income and wealth distribution. A progressive tax system serves as a partial substitute...

The incidence and efficiency losses of taxes have usually been analysed in isolation from public expenditures. This negligence of the expenditure side may imply a serious misperception of the effects of marginal tax rates. The reason is that part of the marginal tax may in fact be payment for...

When a public good is excludable it is possible to charge individuals for using the good. We study the role of prices on excludable public goods within an extension of the Stern-Stiglitz version of the Mirrlees optimal income tax model. Our discussion includes both the case where the public good...

The paper extends the basic Stiglitz (1982) model of optimal income taxation into general search equilibrium. When we extend the basic taxation model to include a more realistic treatment of the labor market, a number of new interesting mechanisms arise. When wages are fixed we find that a work...

This paper explores the rationale for unemployment benefits as a complement to optimal non-linear income taxation. High-skilled workers and low-skilled workers face different exogenous risks of being unemployed. As long as the low-skilled workers face a higher unemployment risk, we find that...

In this paper we show that in a two sector economy with heterogeneous agents and competitive markets, in a steady state the optimal capital income tax rate is in general different from zero. The optimal tax policy in this setting depends on the relative price difference. In a two sector economy...