Recently, Svensson (1997) has shown that a combination of state-contingent inflation targeting and central banker "conservatism" produces optimal monetary policy if employment is persistent. We argue that the state-contingent nature of the scheme may undermine its credibility. We then show that...

We explore endogenous monetary unification in the context of a model in which a country with serious structural distortions (and, hence, high inflation) is admitted into a monetary union once its economic structure has converged sufficiently towards that of the existing participants. If...

We explore endogenous monetary unification in the context of a model in which a country with serious structural distortions (and, hence, high inflation) is admitted into a monetary union once its economic structure has converged sufficiently towards that of the existing participants. If...

Recently, Svensson (1997) has shown that a combination of state-contingent inflation targeting and central banker conservatism produces optimal monetary policy if employment is persistent. We argue that the state-contingent nature of the scheme may undermine its credibility. We then show that...

This paper employs an overlapping-generations model to explore the impact of public abatement on private investment and the intergenerational distribution of welfare. Whereas public abatement benefits the oldest generations in terms of non-environmental welfare, future generations gain most in...

Using Danish data, we find that about three fourths of the taxes levied to finance public transfers actually finance benefits that do not redistribute between people but redistribute income over the life cycle of individual taxpayers. This provides a rationale for financing part of social...

In the modern welfare state a substantial part of an individual’s tax bill is transferred back to the same individual taxpayer in the form of social transfers. This provides a rationale for financing part of social insurance through mandatory savings accounts. We analyze the behavioral and...

This paper deals with the so-called 'double-dividend' of an environmental tax reform. We find that, in a model with only labor and a polluting input as factors of production, society faces a trade-off between internalizing environmental externalities and raising revenues in the least...

Advances in information technology have improved the administrative feasibility of redistribution based on lifetime earnings recorded at the time of retirement. We study optimal lifetime income taxation and social insurance in an economy in which redistributive taxation and social insurance...

This paper employs an overlapping-generations model to explore the impact of public abatement on private investment and the intergenerational distribution of welfare. Whereas public abatement benefits the oldest generations in terms of non-environmental welfare, future generations gain most in...