We set out a general framework for cooperative household models, based on Samuelson's idea of a household welfare function, but extending it to incorporate the key insight from Nash bargaining models - the idea that the household's preference ordering over the utility profiles of its members...

This article is concerned with the question of how two-earner households should be taxed. One reason for the importance of this issue is simply the quantitative significance of households formed around couples. A second reason is that the economic theory of optimal taxation and tax reform, at...

This article applies the theory of relational contracts to make precise the idea that because households are engaged in a repeated non-cooperative game, Pareto efficient outcomes can be supported by self interest, given the specific pattern of specialization and exchange that exists in the...

The Mirrlees Review of the UK tax system, together with its companion volume of research papers, can be expected to influence future discussions of tax reform. Indeed, this can already be recognised in the Henry Review. As far as income taxation is concerned, the most substantive recommendation...