Optimal Taxation and Asymmetric Information in an Economy with Second-Hand Trade

This paper concerns optimal income and commodity taxation in a two-type overlapping generations model, where used durable goods are traded in a second-hand market. As second-hand transactions are difficult to observe, we assume that the government is unable to directly control second-hand transactions via commodity taxation. A basic question is how the government in this case may use the second-hand market as a channel for relaxation of the self-selection constraint. We show how the appearance of a second-hand market for used durable goods affects the optimal use of labor income and capital income taxation as well as the optimal use of commodity taxation on new durable goods.