This Handbook entry presents a conceptual, normative overview of the subject of taxation. It emphasizes the relationships among the main functions of taxation—notably, raising revenue, redistributing income, and correcting externalities—and the mapping between these functions and various...

The paper studies optimal income taxation in a model with labor supply responses at the intensive and the extensive margin. It is shown that a utilitarian desire for redistribution does not pin down the sign of the optimal marginal tax rate: labor supply may be downward distorted, undistorted,...

Optimal Marginal Tax rates may be used to lower the potential for wealth disparity and increase productivity at the same time. The author reviews the correlation of the optimal marginal tax rates by historical data

We propose and axiomatically characterize a family of welfare criteria that prioritize individuals making larger sacrifices. By combining efficiency with a concern for equality of sacrifice, our criteria avoid serious shortcomings of utilitarianism. We illustrate our results within the...

The COVID-19 pandemic increased public debt and changed the income distribution in many countries. We use a numerical simulation approach to derive optimal nonlinear marginal tax rates for the pre-crisis and crisis periods. We contribute to the literature by examining optimal tax rates...

This paper surveys the link between imperfect competition and the effects of fiscal policy on output, employment and welfare. We examine static and dynamic models, with and without entry under a variety of assumptions using a common analytical framework. We find that in general there is a robust...

This paper surveys the link between imperfect competition and the effects of fiscal policy on output, employment and welfare. We examine static and dynamic models, with and without entry under a variety of assumptions using a common analytical framework. We find that in general there is a robust...

This paper focuses on the trade-off faced by governments in deciding the allocation of public expenditures between productivity-enhancing public infrastructures and utility-enhancing public consumption in a two-country model. The results show that a permanent increase in the domestic stock of...

This paper surveys the link between imperfect competition and the effects of fiscal policy on output, employment and welfare. We examine static and dynamic models, with and without entry under a variety of assumptions using a common analytical framework. We find that in general there is a robust...

Applied welfare analyses of redistributive systems nowadays benefit from powerful tax benefit microsimulation programs combined with administrative data. Arguably, most of the distributional studies of that kind focus on social welfare defined as a function - typically inequality or poverty...