We consider optimal joint nonlinear earnings taxation of couples. We use multi-dimensional mechanism design techniques to study this problem and show that the first-order approach - that restricts attention to only local incentive constraints - is valid for a broad set of primitives. Optimal...

This paper develops a model of a monetary economy in which individual firms are subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks as well as general inflation. Sellers can change price only by incurring a real 'menu cost'. We calibrate this cost and the variance and autocorrelation of the...

We develop a unified framework for optimally managing public portfolios for a class of macro-finance models that include widely-used specifications for households' risk and liquidity preferences, market structures for financial assets, and trading frictions. An optimal portfolio hedges...

This paper develops a model of a monetary economy in which individual firms are subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks as well as general inflation. Sellers can change price only by incurring a real menu cost.' We calibrate this cost and the variance and autocorrelation of the...

We develop a perturbational technique to approximate equilibria of a wide class of discrete-time dynamic stochastic general equilibrium heterogeneous-agent models with complex state spaces, including multi-dimensional distributions of endogenous variables. We show that approximating policy...

Year-ahead forecasts of tax revenues incorporated into IMF programs for low-income countries, from 1993 to 1999, are compared with the corresponding outturns. The accuracy of these forecasts was low, with a mean absolute percentage error of 16 percent. Forecasts of tax revenues as a percentage...

In this paper, we generalize the notion of Pareto-efficiency to make it applicable to environments with endogenous populations. Two different efficiency concepts are proposed, P-efficiency and A-efficiency. The two concepts differ in how they treat people that are not born. We show how these...

This paper develops a model of a monetary economy in which individual firms are subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks as well as general inflation. Sellers can change price only by incurring a real menu cost.' We calibrate this cost and the variance and autocorrelation of the...

We study optimal taxation in an economy where the skills of agents evolve stochastically over time and are private information and in which agents can trade unobservably in competitive markets. We show that competitive equilibria are constrained inefficient. The government can improve welfare by...