In this paper we investigate the positive and normative consequences of child-labour restrictions for economic aggregates and welfare. We argue that even though the laissez-faire equilibrium may be inefficient, there are usually better policies to cure these inefficiencies than the imposition of...

Does it matter, for the size of the government spending multiplier, which category of agents bears the brunt of the necessary adjustment in taxes? In an economy with heterogeneous agents and imperfect financial markets, the answer depends on whether or not New Keynesian features, such are price...

We estimate the effects of fiscal policy on the labor market in US data. An increase in government spending of 1 percent of GDP generates output and unemployment multipliers respectively of about 1.2 per cent (at one year) and 0.6 percentage points (at the peak). Each percentage point increase...

Can public insurance through redistributive income taxation improve the allocation of risk in an economy in which private risk sharing is limited? The answer depends crucially on the fundamental friction that limits private risk sharing in the first place. If risk sharing is incomplete because...

We lay out a tractable model for fiscal and monetary policy analysis in a currency union, and analyse its implications for the optimal design of such policies. Monetary policy is conducted by a common central bank, which sets the interest rate for the union as a whole. Fiscal policy is...

This paper computes the optimal progressivity of the income tax code in a dynamic general equilibrium model with household heterogeneity in which uninsurable labour productivity risk gives rise to a nontrivial income and wealth distribution. A progressive tax system serves as a partial...

This paper studies an overlapping generations model with stochastic production and incomplete markets to assess whether the introduction of an unfunded social security system leads to a Pareto improvement. When returns to capital and wages are imperfectly correlated a system that endows retired...

Government spending at the zero lower bound (ZLB) is not necessarily welfare enhancing, even when its output multiplier is large. When government spending provides direct utility to the household, its optimal level is at most 0.5-1 percent of GDP for recessions of -4 percent; the numbers are...

In this paper we argue that very high marginal labor income tax rates are an effective tool for social insurance even when households have preferences with high labor supply elasticity, make dynamic savings decisions, and policies have general equilibrium effects. To make this point we construct...

In an economy with financial imperfections, Ricardian equivalence holds when prices are flexible and the steady-state distribution of consumption is uniform, or labor is inelastic. With different steady-state consumption levels, Ricardian equivalence fails, but tax cuts, somewhat paradoxically,...