This paper considers an optimal income tax cum higher education policy. It shows that in the presence of an optimal income tax system higher education should be taxed rather than subsidized. Furthermore, income taxes should become less progressive when an optimal higher education policy is...

Assuming that higher traveling expenses reduce traveling time, this paper considers tax deductibility of commuting expenses when a distorting wage tax is levied. While the decision on commuting expenses would not be distorted if traveling costs were completely deductible, taxation would still...

This paper examines a Waste Management Organisation's (WMO) pricing options to implement the Pareto-efficient allocation in an economy where materials are first extracted, then used for producing a consumption good and finally recycled or landfilled. The composition of consumption waste results...

This paper compares private investment in risky education in a laissezfaire economy and with income redistribution. Obtaining higher education requires time and may require paying nondeductible resource costs. The paper shows that redistributive taxation may actually increase private investment...

Should a benevolent social planner subsidize family size? Typically, contributions assuming exogenous fertility yield an affirmative answer, while those assuming endogenous fertility do not reach definite conclusions. We re-examine the endogenous fertility model, and find that when...

We conduct a field experiment on direct and indirect transfer mechanisms. It shows that people are willing to donate significantly more if the donation is indirect, i.e., it is tied to the purchase of a good with a price premium, rather than made directly. This points to an...

Besley (1988) uses a scaling approach to model merit good arguments in commodity tax policy. In this paper, I question this approach on the grounds that it produces 'wrong' recommendations--taxation (subsidisation) of merit (demerit) goods--whenever the demand for the (de)merit good is...

This paper adapts an incentive-compatible regulatory mechanism to the problem of taxing a foreign monopolist with unknown costs, when price and quantity contracts cannot be enforced. It is shown that the optimal mechanism involves an import licence fee, and yields zero expected revenue to the...

This paper studies the endogenous determination of financial and trade openness. We outline a framework where financial openness is endogenously determined by the authority’s choice of financial repression as a taxation device, and where the private sector determines endogenously the magnitude...

We develop a computable general equilibrium model of the Egyptian economy. The model is suitable for analyzing the impacts of reforms in the tax system, the trade-policy regime, or both taken together. A two-sector, general-equilibrium model is presented diagrammatically to illustrate the...