This paper considers a world of many symmetric countries where public goods in principle are financed by taxes on saving, investment and pure profits. In theory, countries could use all three taxes in combination. In practice, however, the tax instrument set may be restricted by, for instance,...

Various economic literatures address the question whether first-best prescriptions for government policy require modification because redistributive income taxation distorts labor supply and cannot achieve the distributive ideal. Perhaps second-best rules for public goods provision, corrective...

Specialized theoretical and empirical research should in principle be embedded in a unified framework that identifies the relevant interactions among different phenomena, enables an appropriate matching of policy instruments to objectives, and grounds normative analysis in individuals' utilities...

This study constructs a variety expansion growth model that integrates basic research to analytically examine its effects on household welfare. In our approach, the research sector consists of applied and basic research components. The former creates blueprints and expands the variety of goods...

The benefits of climate policy normally consist exclusively of the reduced impacts of climate change, i.e., the policy’s primary aim. Our analysis of benefits of climate policy suggests, however, that researchers and policymakers should also take account of ancillary benefits, e.g., in the...

We develop a two-country model of foreign aid and cross-border pollution resulting from production activities in the recipient country. There is both private and public abatement of pollution, the latter being financed through emissions tax revenue and foreign aid. We characterize a Nash...

We develop a North-South model of foreign aid and cross-border pollution resulting from production activities in the recipient country. There is both private and public abatement of pollution, the latter being financed through emissions tax revenue and foreign aid. We characterise a Nash...

This paper posits the conceptually useful allegory of a futuristic "World Climate Assembly" that votes on global carbon emissions via the basic principle of majority rule. Two variants are considered. One is to vote on a universal price (or tax) that is internationally harmonized, but the...