Widening economic inequality is fast becoming the defining social problem of this era. Although there are a number of policy mechanisms available for addressing the problem, taxation is the first and best tool for the job. The federal income tax code is already moderately progressive and thus...

To what degree should societies allow inequality to be inherited? What role should estate taxation play in shaping the intergenerational transmission of welfare? We explore these questions by modeling altruistically-linked individuals who experience privately observed taste or productivity...

This paper identifies a previously unnoticed problem important for the efficient reduction of GHG emissions: the pricing of off-peak electricity. There may be many opportunities to reduce emissions by substituting relatively clean and inexpensive off-peak electricity in place of a more...

Various economic literatures address the question whether first-best prescriptions for government policy require modification because redistributive income taxation distorts labor supply and cannot achieve the distributive ideal. Perhaps second-best rules for public goods provision, corrective...

We show that for a broad class of technologies the relationship between policy stringency and the rate of technology adoption is inverted U-shaped. This happens when the marginal abatement cost (MAC) curves of conventional and new technologies intersect, which invariably occurs when emissions...

We show that for a broad class of technologies the relationship between policy stringency and the rate of technology adoption is inverted U-shaped. This happens when the marginal abatement cost (MAC) curves of conventional and new technologies intersect, which invariably occurs when emissions...

This paper investigates the distributional and efficiency consequences of an environmental tax reform, when the revenue from the green tax is recycled by varying labor tax rates. We build a general equilibrium model with imperfect heterogeneous labor markets, pollution consumption externalities,...

Most studies of water quality trading (WQT) analyze the cost effectiveness of reducing nutrient pollution in isolation from other policies. However, the policy landscape to reduce nutrient pollution from agriculture is dominated by existing cost-share (CS) programs, which are likely to persist...

The non-monetary costs consumers experience from regulations are challenging to quantify, and thus easily overlooked. Using quasi-experimental policy variation and high-frequency supermarket data, this paper identifies previously hidden time costs from policies that ban or tax the use of...

This paper examines the efficiency and distributional impacts of introducing a price floor in an emissions trading system (ETS) when environmental regulation is partitioned. We theoretically characterize the conditions under which a price floor enhances welfare. Using a multi-country...