This paper provides a new explanation for "tax holidays," as well as their subsequent removal in a tax reform stage. In a two-period model, I assume that perfectly competitive foreign investors are uncertain about the host country government's propensity for public spending, and that infinitely...

We construct the ratio of the post-fisc to the pre-fisc transitory component of the variance of family incomes in Canada from 1993 and 2008. The ratio measures how much the tax and transfer system attenuates market income instability. It is shown that the ratio of variances is equivalent...

We consider an R&D-driven endogenous growth model in which innovation is risky and agents are risk averse. Growth is determined by the occupational choice of agents who can either work in production for a wage or become entrepreneurs. In this context, we examine the impact of redistributive...

The development of the welfare state in the Western economies between 1930 and 1990 coincided with a puzzling pattern in the taxation of top incomes. Effective tax rates at the top increased sharply but then gradually decreased, even as social transfers continued rising. We propose a new theory...

The development of the welfare state in the decades following the Great Depression coincided with a puzzling pattern in the taxation of top incomes. Effective tax rates at the top increased sharply but then gradually decreased, even as social transfers continued rising. We argue that this was...

In this paper we examine the optimal taxation of corporate profits in a multi-period limit pricing model where a dominant firm faces expansion by a competitive fringe. The optimal policy requires tax rates to vary both intertemporally and across firm sizes, and balances the benefit of fringe...