This aims to provide a perspective on the ideal tax system, using insights from optimal-tax theory supplemented with empirical evidence. These insights are applied to actual policy questions regarding the progressiveness of the labor-income tax, in-work tax credits, the design of the...

We apply theories of capital-market failure to analyze optimal financing of risky higher education. In the market solution, students can only finance theireducation through debt. There is underinvestment in human capital because some students with socially profitable investments in human capital...

In a two-period world with endogenous savings and two assets, the optimal tax structure and optimal diversification of aggregate (capital) risk between private and public consumption are analyzed. We show that there is no trade-off between efficiency in intertemporal consumption and allocation...

In this paper, we analyze how the implicit tax rate can be smoothed in a pay-as-you-go system if life expectancy increases or if the rate of population growth declines. We show that generation-specific contribution or replacement rates are necessary to smooth the implicit tax rate. Partial...