When a deficit occurs in the funding of collective goods, it is usually covered by raising theamount of taxes or by rationing the supply of the goods. This article compares the efficiencyof these institutions. We report the results of a 2x2 experiment based on a game in the firststage of which...

This paper examines the determinants of female labour force participation in OECD countries, including a number of policy instruments such as the tax treatment of second earners (relative to single individuals), childcare subsidies, child benefits, paid maternity and parental leaves, and tax...

This paper examines the implications of habit formation in private and public consumption for the Pareto-efficient provision of public goods, based on a two-period model with nonlinear taxation. If the public good supply is time-invariant, the presence of habit formation generally alters the...

We study a large economy model in which individuals have private information about their productive abilities and their preferences. Moreover, there is aggregate uncertainty so that the social benefits from taxation and public goods provision are a priori unknown. The analysis is based on a...

This paper examines the implications of habit formation in private and public consumption for the Pareto-efficient provision of public goods, based on a two-period model with nonlinear taxation. If the public good supply is time-invariant, the presence of habit formation generally alters the...

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 Handbook entry presents a conceptual, normative overview of the subject of taxation. It emphasizes the relationships among the main functions of taxation—notably, raising revenue, redistributing income, and correcting externalities—and the mapping between these functions and various...

Almost all previous studies on public policy under relative consumption concerns have ignored the role of leisure for status comparisons. Inspired by Veblen (1899), this paper considers a two-type optimal income tax model, where people care about their relative consumption, and where the...

We study a large economy model in which individuals have private information about their productive abilities and their preferences. Moreover, there is aggregate uncertainty so that the social benefits from taxation and public goods provision are a priori unknown. The analysis is based on a...

This paper describes a new method for solving non-standard constrained optimization problems for which standard methodologies do not work properly. Our method (the Rational Iterative Multisection -RIM- algorithm) consists of different stages that can be interpreted as different requirements of...