In this work we explore the impact of alternative tax-benefits systems on household welfare. The framework of our analysis is the theory of optimal taxation with the distribution of potential wages replaced by the distribution of household abilities. The latter has been calculated by inversion...

Education can be a filter that solves an assignment problem. We consider what this implies for redistributive taxation in the political process. First we assume that all individuals have undistorted expectations about their abilities. Then we analyse populations in which some group of workers is...

Earning an income is probably the best way of avoiding poverty and social exclusion, hence the recent trend of promoting employment through in-work transfers in OECD countries. Yet, the relative consensus on the need for `making work pay' policies is muddied by a number of concerns relative to...