We develop a theory of tax reforms for a setting with multi-dimensional heterogeneity amongst taxpayers and multiple economic decisions that are all subject to fixed and variable costs. The theorems in this paper provide a complete characterization of the conditions under which Pareto- or...

We develop a theory of tax reforms for a setting with multi-dimensional heterogeneity amongst taxpayers and multiple economic decisions that are all subject to fixed and variable costs. The theorems in this paper provide a complete characterization of the conditions under which Pareto- or...

This paper develops a comprehensive framework for analyzing the revenue, efficiency and social welfare implications of top income taxation. It generalizes the Saez (2001) formula for the optimal top tax rate by deriving analytical expressions for the Laffer curve and excess burden. Applied to...

Taxation plays a crucial role in microeconomics, as it directly impacts individuals, businesses, and the overall functioning of markets. We will explore the principles, objectives, and effects of taxation in the context of microeconomics

When deciding on the social desirability of public investment, the cost of a project is sometimes adjusted by a factor known as the Marginal Cost of Public Funds (MCP F ), which captures the cost of raising public funds through distortionary taxation. However, there is no scholarly consensus on...

We develop a theory of commodity taxation featuring imperfect competition along with love-of-variety preferences and endogenous firm entry and exit, and we derive new formulas for the efficiency and pass-through of specific and ad valorem taxes. These formulas unify existing canonical ones and...

"This book focuses on the income taxation of individuals. Most income tax laws that apply to individuals apply in the same manner to entities such as corporations, partnerships, and trusts. So, this book is a survey of the fundamentals of income taxation that applies to all taxpayers, but we...

We introduce a new theory for optimizing frictions that prevents agents from choosing the threshold where the slope (kink) or intercept (notch) of a constraint changes. By making these frictions a function of observables, we can estimate why agents do not report exactly at predicted thresholds....

A Theory of International Taxation combines qualitative and quantitative analyses to shed light on the shaping of the international tax regime (ITR) over the last century. It offers a theory of the ITR as the product of the strategic interaction between three small groups: international...

The traditional method of analyzing the distorting effects of the income tax greatly underestimates its total deadweight loss as well as the incremental deadweight loss of an increase in income tax rates. Deadweight losses are substantially greater than these conventional estimates because the...

The normative principle of benefit-based taxation has exerted substantial influence on many areas of public finance, but it has been largely set aside in the modern theoretical approach to optimal income taxation, where welfarist objectives dominate. A prerequisite for that gap to close is the...

We study optimal taxation in a model with endogenous financial frictions, risky investmentand occupational choice, where the distribution of wealth across entrepreneurs affects how efficiently capital is used. The planner chooses linear taxes on wealth, capital and labor income to maximize the...

I characterize the optimal linear commodity taxes when households differ in multiple characteristics, in presence of an optimal non-linear tax schedule on the households' labour incomes. The optimal distortions caused by a linear commodity tax are larger if, conditional on labour income, more...

This paper highlights the significance of open-economy considerations in the analysis of tax reforms. It focuses on domestic and international consequences of revenue-neutral conversions between income and value-added tax systems. The principal conclusion of this investigation is that the...

General equilibrium models have recently been used to simulate the effects of many proposed tax changes. However, in modeling the effects of the government on the economy, these models have assumed for simplicity that marginal tax rates equal the observed average tax rates, and that marginal...

This paper provides general and empirically implementable sufficient statistics formulas for optimal nonlinear tax systems in the presence of across-income heterogeneity in preferences, inheritances, income-shifting capabilities, and other sources. We study unrestricted tax systems on income and...

This paper characterizes the shape of the Laffer curve for consumption tax analytically, considering (i) the functional form of utility and (ii) the use of tax revenue in a neoclassical general equilibrium model. The tax revenue curve for consumption tax cannot be hump-shaped if the utility...

Most analyses of optimal income taxation make restrictive technical assumptions on preferences (such as single-crossing) and only derive properties of welfare-maximizing tax schedules. Here, for an economy with any finite numbers of groups and commodities, Pareto efficient tax structures are...

The implications of a large public debt for the implementation of capital controls for an economy where tax revenue collection is costly are examined. Conditions are analyzed under which policymakers will resort to capital controls to reduce the cost of recycling domestic public debt. The...

This article discusses the potential benefits of utilizing critical tax theory to enhance traditional tax policy analysis. The article demonstrates that because traditional tax policy presumes that taxpayer income level is the only salient factor in tax equity analysis, it fails to consider any...

This paper provides general and empirically implementable sufficient statistics formulas for optimal nonlinear tax systems in the presence of across-income heterogeneity in preferences, inheritances, income-shifting capabilities, and other sources. We study unrestricted tax systems on income and...

This paper provides general and empirically implementable sufficient statistics formulas for optimal nonlinear tax systems in the presence of across-income heterogeneity in preferences, inheritances, income-shifting capabilities, and other sources. We study unrestricted tax systems on income and...

This paper reviews recent advances in the study of dynamic taxation, considering three main approaches: the dynamic Mirrlees, the parametric Ramsey, and the sufficient statistics approaches. In the first approach, agents' heterogeneous abilities to earn income are private information and evolve...

We characterize optimal policies in a multidimensional nonlinear taxation model with bunching. We develop an empirically relevant model with cognitive and manual skills, firm heterogeneity, and labor market sorting. The analysis of optimal policy is based on two main results. We first derive an...

We study optimal taxation in a model with endogenous financial frictions, risky investment and occupational choice, where the distribution of wealth across entrepreneurs affects how efficiently capital is used. The planner chooses linear taxes on wealth, capital and labor income to maximize the...

We study optimal taxation in a model with endogenous financial frictions, risky investment and occupational choice, where the distribution of wealth across entrepreneurs affects how efficiently capital is used. The planner chooses linear taxes on wealth, capital and labor income to maximize the...

The informal economy has grown considerably in Zimbabwe due to the extended economic and political crisis in the country. This growth of the informal sector has shrunk formal sector tax collections thereby prompting authorities to set sights on informal sector taxation as an option to enhance...

Standard optimal capital tax theory abstracts from modeling asset prices, making it unsuitable for thinking about capital gains and wealth taxation. We study optimal redistributive taxation in an environment with asset price changes, adopting the modern finance view that asset prices fluctuate...

Marijuana legalization creates a host of complex legal problems, not the least of which is how to best tax the emerging legal market. This Essay attempts to bridge the gap between tax theory and marijuana policy to make some modest claims. First, it roots the discussion of state-level marijuana...

This paper examines how the optimal Pigouvian tax should be adjusted to reflect administrative costs. Several cases are examined, depending on whether the administrative costs are fixed per firm taxed or are a function of the amount of tax collected, and on whether such costs are borne by the...

This paper makes the case for a more deliberate and expansive consideration of political economy issues in the context of Australian tax policy. Although there is a rich international literature analysing how political factors and institutions shape tax policy outcomes, with a few notable...

We study the nonlinear taxation of internationally mobile workers in general equilibrium. Contrary to conventional wisdom, in general equilibrium, migration lowers the bottom tax rate but raises the top tax rate, making the optimal tax system more progressive and moving tax rates closer to those...

An important result due to Atkinson and Stiglitz (1976) is that differential commodity taxation is not optimal in the presence of an optimal nonlinear income tax (given weak separability of utility between labor and all consumption goods). This article demonstrates that their conclusion holds...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a progress report on the issue of the implications of optimal tax theory and recent econometric evidence for tax policy. Toward this end, Section 2 provides a brief and often heuristic summary of the major results of optimal tax theory. Section 3 reports...

This paper reassesses the general trade-off between ad valorem and specific taxation using an economic model that features love-of-variety preferences and encompasses a wide range of market conduct –including both quantity and price competition – while allowing for firm entry and exit. We...

In recent years there has been great interest in the possibility of substituting environmentally motivated or 'green' taxes for ordinary income taxes. Some have suggested that such revenue-neutral reforms might offer a 'double dividend:' not only (1) improve the environment but also (2) reduce...