Social disparities have a common and consistent character in the vast majority of contemporary countries. The level of income inequality in OECD countries has grown in the past 30 years and is still rising. Taxes and tax systems, aside from social transfers, are fiscal instruments widely used in...

This paper explores the relationship between environmental protection and international capital movements, when tax policy is endogenous (through voting). A two-period general equilibrium model of a small open economy is specified to compare the effects of two different constitutions (commitment...

This paper compares education investment in closed and open economies without government and with a benevolent government. The fact that the time consistency problem in taxation can make labor mobility beneficial even if governments are fully benevolent - which is known from other contexts - is...

Through tax evasion, through the labour-leisure choice or in other ways, taxpayers reduce the tax base in response to an increase in the tax rate. The process is commonly-believed to generate a humped Laffer curve with a revenue-maximizing tax rate well short of 100%. That need not be so. In the...

The total social benefits of college education exceed the private benefits because the government receives a share of the monetary returns in the form of income taxes. We study the policy implications of this fiscal externality in an optimal dynamic tax framework. Using a variational approach we...

The total social benefits of college education exceed the private benefits because the government receives a share of the monetary returns in the form of income taxes. We study the policy implications of this fiscal externality in an optimal dynamic tax framework. Using a variational approach we...

We study the implications of limited commitment on education and tax policies chosen by benevolent governments. Individual wages are determined by both innate abilities and education levels. Consistent with real world practices, the government can decide to subsidize different levels of...

The total social benefits of college education exceed the private benefits because the government receives a share of the monetary returns in the form of income taxes. We study the policy implications of this fiscal externality in an optimal dynamic tax framework. Using a variational approach we...

By inverting Saez (2002)'s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize the redistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal) social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time and show great stability despite...

In West Africa, the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy consists of a uniform tax rate, but several items consumed by rich and poor households, are exempted. We provide an optimal tax framework to reflect on the welfare effects of such a tariff structure, in the context of current debates on domestic...