We analyze the macroeconomic implications of increasing the top marginal income tax rate using a dynamic general equilibrium framework with heterogeneous agents and a fiscal structure resembling the actual US tax system. The wealth and income distributions generated by our model replicate the...

This paper examines the degree of income tax progressivity chosen through a simple majority vote in a model with savings. Households have permanent differences with respect to their labor productivity and their discount factors. The government has limited commitment to future policy, so voting...

Using a calibrated overlapping generations model we quantify the welfare gains of an age dependent income tax. Agents face uncertainty regarding future abilities and can by saving transfer consumption across periods. The welfare gain of switching from an age-independent to an age-dependent...

This paper shows how to evaluate investment projects in transparently taxed partnerships and individual enterprises. After the German income tax reform 2008, there is an option for taxing retained earnings at a flat rate of 28.25 %‚ followed by a second taxation in the year of withdrawal. This...

This paper reports estimates of the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the net-of-tax rate for New Zealand taxpayers. The elasticity of taxable income was estimated to be substantially higher for the highest income groups. Generally it was higher for men than for women. Changes in the...

We study optimal nonlinear income taxation when earnings can differ because of both ability and luck, so the income tax has both a redistributive role and an insurance role. A substantial literature on optimal redistribution in the absence of uncertainty has evolved since Mirrlees' original...

Income mobility is often thought to equalize permanent incomes and thereby to improve social welfare. The welfare analysis of mobility often fails, however, to account for the cost of the variability of periodic incomes around permanent incomes. This paper assesses the net welfare benefit of...

The literature on optimal income taxation has operated on the assumption that wage rates are generated exogenously by innate ability and therefore do not respond to behavior and taxation. This is in stark contrast to a large empirical literature documenting a strong effect of work effort on...

The empirical literature on the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) sometimes questions whether estimated values are consistent with being on the revenueincreasing section of the Laffer curve, usually in the context of a single rate tax system or for top marginal rates. This paper develops...

This paper studies optimal linear and nonlinear redistributive income taxation when there is adverse selection in the labor market. Unlike in standard taxation models, firms do not know workers' abilities and competitively screen them through nonlinear compensation contracts. The equilibrium...