Public provision of a private good can alleviate the informational problems that restrict redistribution through the tax/transfer system when the identity of high- and low-skill persons is hidden. A Pareto improvement may be achieved by publicly providing a private good and letting each consumer...

The paper discusses which distributional policies are efficient when the identity of the high and low skill persons is private information. Our major purpose is to identify the more efficient policy when, presumably for administrative reasons, the policy option is confined to the choice between...

When a public good is excludable it is possible to charge individuals for using the good. We study the role of prices for publicly provided excludable public goods within an extension of the Stern-Stiglitz version of the Mirrlees optimal income tax model. We show that for a public consumer good...

When a poublic good ist excludable it is possible to charge individuals for using the good. We study the role of prices onexcludable public goods using an extension of the Stiglitz-Sternversion of the Mirrlees optimal income tax model. Our discussionincludes both the case where the public good...

Non-linear income taxes and linear commodity taxes are analysed when people differ with respect to ability, high-skilled agents have heterogeneous preferences, and neither individual abilities nor preferences are observable. The paper highlights how informational constraints may motivate...

The incidence and efficiency losses of taxes have usually been analyzed in isolation from public expenditures. This negligence of the expenditure side may imply a serious misperception of the effects of marginal tax rates. The reason is that part of the marginal tax may in fact be a payment for...

There is extensive public provision of private goods in all developed countries. The public provision scheme is often designed so that individuals can opt out but not top up (supplement) the publicly provided quantity/quality. Using an optimal income tax/public provision model, the authors...

In this survey of some central issues of tax and expenditure policy in an open economy, the authors consider the implications for policy of free--although not necessarily perfect--international mobility of commodities, capital, and labor. They examine the issues both from a positive and a...