Income tax evasion is modeled as a risky activity and integrated into a standard optimal tax problem in which there is a good whose sales are observable. If the penalty for evasion is proportional to the tax evaded (the Yitzhaki scheme), the optimal tax structure is unaffected by evasion. If the...

This paper analyzes a simple model of taxation in a federal system within which policymakers are revenue-maximizing Leviathans and fiscal externalities arise not only horizontally, across the "states," but also vertically between levels of government. Such an economy is characterized by...

The comparison between ad valorem and specific taxation is among the oldest issues in formal public finance and is important for policy in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere. This paper develops and articulates simple but very general elasticity rules that characterize the optimal balance...

We study federal economies in which regional governments have responsibility for delivering public services and redistributive objectives apply. The implications of these for the assignment of revenue-raising instruments and fiscal transfers, both vertical and horizontal, are considered. Models...

Market failure in the financing of risky projects is studied. Project risk includes idiosyncratic and aggregate components. Banks can investigate aggregate risk and can evaluate the idiosyncratic risk of each entrepreneur. They engage in Bertrand competition for entrepreneurs using interest...

This paper studies the conflict of interest between politicians and better-informed bureaucrats when they have differing preferences over a public project. We start with a baseline model where a bureaucrat advises a single decision maker (politician) whether to adopt a project. The bureaucrat...

Properties of the optimal income tax for quasi-linear in leisure preferences are studied. With utilitarian or maxi-min objectives, closed-form solutions are obtained. Bunching occurs over intervals where the second-order incentive condition is binding. Whether this occurs depends solely on the...