We consider the optimal nonlinear income taxation problem in a dynamic, stochastic environment when the government cannot change the tax rule as uncertainty resolves. Due to such a stationarity constraint, our taxation problem is reduced to a static one over an expanded type space. We strengthen...

We consider the optimal nonlinear income taxation problem in a dynamic, stochastic environment when the government is sluggish in the sense that it cannot change the tax rule as uncertainty resolves. We show that the sluggish government cannot allow saving or borrowing regardless of the utility...

We consider the optimal nonlinear income taxation problem in a dynamic, stochastic environment when the government is sluggish in the sense that it cannot change the tax rule as uncertainty resolves. We argue that the zero top marginal tax rate result in static models is of little practical...

This paper shows how to derive a complete set of optimality conditions characterising the solution to a dynamic optimal income tax problem in the spirit of Mirrlees (1971), under the assumption that a 'first-order' approach to incentive compatibility is valid.  The method relies on constructing...

Golosov et al. (2003) have extended Atkinson and Stiglitz's uniform tax prescription to a dynamic Mirrlees' (1971) economy under the assumption that the government fully controls the agent's savings. When savings are not controlled by the government we show that the result is no longer valid:...

This paper studies the effect of habit formation on optimal capital taxes in a dynamic Mirrleesian model. We make three distinct contributions. First, we decompose intertemporal wedges (implicit capital taxes) for general time-nonseparable preferences into a wealth effect, a complementarity...

We study optimal capital taxation in a dynamic Mirrleesian model with time-nonseparable preferences. The model covers the widely used cases of habit formation and durable consumption. Time-nonseparable preferences change labor supply incentives across time and thereby generate novel motives to...

Drawing from the formal setting of the optimal tax theory (Mirrlees 1971), the paper identifies the level of Rawlsianism of some European social planner starting from the observation of the real data and redistribution systems and uses it to build a metric that allows measuring the degree of...

We analyze to which extent social inequality aversion differs across nations when control- ling for actual country differences in labor supply responses. Towards this aim, we estimate labor supply elasticities at both extensive and intensive margins for 17 EU countries and the US. Using the same...

Whether observed differences in redistributive policies across countries are the result of differences in social preferences or efficiency constraints is an important question that paves the debate about the optimality of welfare regimes. To shed new light on this question, we estimate labor...