Observed fiscal policy varies greatly across time and countries. How can we explain this variation? This paper surveys the recent literature that has tried to answer this question. We adopt a unified approach in portraying public policy as the equilibrium outcome of an explicitly specified...

We extend "economic equivalence" results, like the Ricardian equivalence proposition, to the political sphere where policy is chosen sequentially. We derive conditions under which a policy regime (summarizing admissible policy choices in every period) and a state are "politico-economically...

We develop a framework for optimal taxation when agents can earn their income both in traditional activities, where private and social products coincide, and in rent-seeking activities, where private returns exceed social returns either because they involve the capture of pre-existing rents or...

The paper analyses tax and tariff policy for trade between economies which each contain a monopolistically competitive industry producing differentiated products. The consequences of tax changes by a single country are examined, and the general desirability of taxing imports more heavily than...

We consider the impact of taxation when investors face a discrete choice between two or more mutually exclusive projects; in particular we consider the location choice of multinationals. Such choices depend on an effective average tax rate. We propose a precise measure of this rate, which is...

This paper sheds new light on why timing and entry mode should be considered simultaneously. We derive the profit levels at which it is optimal to switch from exporting to setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, creating a joint venture, or licensing production to a local firm. The preferred entry...

We develop a model of common agency with complete information and general preferences with non-transferable utility, and prove that the principals’ Nash equilibrium in truthful strategies implements an efficient action. We apply this theory to construct a positive model of public finance,...

This paper uses a two-country overlapping generations model to study the international transmission of fiscal policy among open interdependent economies under free international capital mobility. With only lump-sum taxes and transfers, international transmission involves only pecuniary...

This paper considers the effects of monetary and fiscal policies in an optimizing model with capital accumulation and finite lives. An increase in monetary growth is no longer superneutral in a money-capital economy, but leads to a reduction in the real interest rate and increases in the capital...

This paper analyses the changes to the tax and social security systems that have occurred since Czechoslovakia's `velvet revolution' in 1989. It shows how the tax system is moving to meet the requirements of a market economy. It suggests that a particularly high priority has to be given to...