The tax policy agenda in Australia for more than a decade has been largely driven by a perceived need to reduce the level of income taxation and the progression of marginal rates, financing the revenue shortfall with a broad based consumption tax. A major reform of this kind is now being...

We study the impact of local taxation on the location and growth of firms. Our empirical methodology pairs establishments across jurisdictional boundaries to estimate the impact of taxation. Our approach improves on existing work as it corrects for unobserved establishment heterogeneity, for...

This Paper explores the optimal role of the tax system in alleviating labour-market imperfections and raising revenue. For this purpose, the standard search model of the labour market is extended by introducing scarce entrepreneurial talent and arbitrage between the supply and demand. We study...

This paper examines the effective tax rates faced by low income working families. The effective tax rate (ETR) is a generic concept which encompasses both tax payable and also loss of benefits as income rises.

The paper develops a new approach to measuring the impact of government cash transfers on poverty alleviation that takes into account endogenous reactions and consumption smoothing of households. We use the methodology to study the impact of changes in government cash benefits on poverty rates...

We study an economy where agents are heterogeneous in entrepreneurial ability, and may decide to become workers or entrepreneurs. The government is motivated by a production externality to impose regulations on entrepreneurship, and sets a level of red tape -administered by public officials-to...

Do income taxes levied at a state or regional level affect the after-tax distribution of income? Or do workers merely move between regions, causing pre-tax wages to adjust? This question is relevant both in across states in the United States, and across countries within the European Union. Using...

We derive conditions of individual preferences and technology that give rise to a negative correlation between income inequality and environmental protection. We present a class of models (which captures a static model as well as an overlapping-generations model) in which individuals differ in...

In a number of high-income countries over the past few decades there has been a large growth in income inequality and at the same time a shift in the burden of taxation from the top to the middle of the income distribution. This paper applies the theory of optimal piecewise linear taxation to...

Female 'empowerment' has increasingly become a policy goal, both as an end to itself and as a means to achieving other development goals. Microfinance in particular has often been argued, but not without controversy, to be a tool for empowering women. Here, using a randomized controlled trial,...