In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows the first best rules. This note lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which this property holds in a variety of setups. -- separability ; second best optimality ; indirect taxes ; Samuelson...

We study optimal taxation in the general extensive model: the only decision of the participants in the economy is to choose between working (full time) or staying inactive. People differ in their productivities and in other features which determine their work opportunity costs. The qualitative...

The increase in births in France since 1995 has often been linked by commentators to more generous family benefits. We study here empirically the link between fertility and financial incentives by estimating and simulating a joint structural model of participation and fertility on a sample of...