We formulate a two-period life-cycle model of saving, labor supply, and human capital investments when individuals differ in ability and initial wealth. Borrowing constraints prevent individuals to optimally smooth consumption over the life-cycle and to optimally invest in human capital. We show...

We study optimal linear income taxation in a model with heterogeneous agents where earnings potentials are endogenously determined through human capital accumulation. Agents differ in initial conditions and ability to learn. Capital market imperfections prevent poor agents to invest optimally in...

We study optimal linear income taxation in a model with heterogeneous agents where earnings potentials are endogenously determined through human capital accumulation. Agents differ in initial conditions and ability to learn. Capital market imperfections prevent poor agents to invest optimally in...

This paper studies how linear tax and education policy should optimally respond to skill-biased technical change (SBTC). SBTC affects optimal taxes and subsidies by changing i) direct distributional benefits, ii) indirect redistributional effects due to wage-(de)compression, and iii) education...

We characterize optimal redistribution in a dynastic family model with human capital. We show how a government can improve the trade-off between equality and incentives by changing the amount of observable human capital. We provide an intuitive decomposition for the wedge between human-capital...

We characterize optimal redistribution in a dynastic family model with human capital. We show how a government can improve the trade-off between equality and incentives by changing the amount of observable human capital. We provide an intuitive decomposition for the wedge between human-capital...

We study the joint design of nonlinear income and education taxes when the government pursues redistributive objectives. A key feature of our setup is that the ability type of an agent can affect both the costs and benefits of acquiring education. Market remuneration of agents depends on both...

We show that more human capital improves incentives in a standard optimal taxation problem: common assumptions about preferences and technology imply that the disutility of labor decreases less strongly in unobserved ability if agents have more human capital. Human capital thus reduces the...

This paper studies optimal taxation of income and education when employers cannot observe workers' productivity and workers signal their productivity to firms by choosing both quantity and quality of education. We characterize constrained efficient allocations and derive conditions under which...