It is a natural presumption that there should be less distorting taxation when there are more decisions based on the prices distorted by taxation. This note shows the need for an additional assumption in order to reach the conclusion. We consider a competitive model with one consumption good,...

In this book Peter Diamond analyzes social security as a particular example of optimal taxation theory. Assuming a world of incomplete markets and asymmetric information, he uses a variety of simple models to illuminate the economic forces that bear on specific social security policy issues. The...

This paper presents the case for tax progressivity based on recent results in optimal tax theory. We consider the optimal progressivity of earnings taxation and whether capital income should be taxed. We critically discuss the academic research on these topics and when and how the results can be...