This paper develops a realistic, tractable theoretical model that can be used to investigate socially-optimal capital taxation. We present a dynamic model of savings and bequests with heterogeneous random tastes for bequests to children and for wealth per se. We derive formulas for optimal tax...

Congress currently is considering changes in the capital gains tax, including reducing the rate, indexing the rate to inflation, or some combination of reduction and indexing. These changes have been advocated on the grounds that a cut in the rate will stimulate investment and economic growth....

This paper studies the public finance implications of controls on international financial capital flows, proposing a model of controls as distortionary taxation. The model formalizes a capital controls rule that conforms real-world stylized facts and is sustainable in the long-run. Capital...

This article studies the properties of optimal fiscal policy in a stochastic growth model when the government cannot commit itself beyond the next period's capital income tax rate. We find that the results contrast markedly with those under full commitment. First, capital income tax rates are...