The paper innovates on the existing optimal taxation literature by taking fertility as endogenous, and allowing for households to be differentiated by their ability to raise children, as well as by their ability to raise income. In a context where the government cannot observe personal...

In contrast to what used to be conventional wisdom among economists,several recent contributions have shown that in-kind transfersschemes can be welfare-improving in the presence of distortionarytaxes (usually, linear taxes or a general income tax). In thisnote, we extend previous work by...

This paper amalgamates two topical issues in the economics ofcommodity taxation: the general case for non-uniformity, andthe tax treatment of commodities that are either inputs to householdproduction or close substitutes for household produced goods.Assuming a redistributive objective and that...

Children are special, not only to their own parents, but also for society at large. Even if society is not directly interested in children, intervention may still be justified for re-distributive reasons. The fact that children are not transferable, while income is, does in fact bias the first...