This article explores subjects in optimal income taxation characterized by recent research interest, practical importance in light of concerns about inequality, potential for misunderstanding, and prospects for advancement. Throughout, the analysis highlights paths for further investigation....

A growing fraction of companies globally have made commitments to reduce their carbon emissions by a certain date. While the companies that make commitments subsequently reduce their emissions, the effect on overall emissions of companies (including those that do not commit) has been small; the...

This is a paper in the ``economists ruin everything'' field. It considers whether Catch-22 situations can persist as an equilibrium phenomenon. Rather than being an arbitrary rule or a set of self-serving beliefs, the focus is on the preferences of Gatekeepers who choose to create such...

In the context of collecting property taxes from 13432 households in a district of Lima (Peru), we investigate whether prioritized enforcement can improve the effective use of limited enforcement capacity. We randomly assign households to two treatment arms: one replicating the city's usual...

Two potentially asymmetric players compete for a prize of common value, which is initially unknown, by exerting efforts. A designer has two instruments for contest design. First, she decides whether and how to disclose an informative signal of the prize value to players. Second, she sets the...

We study a standard collective action problem in which successful achievement of a group interest requires costly participation by some fraction of its members. How should we model the internal organization of these groups when there is asymmetric information about the preferences of their...

This paper analyzes the design of tests to distinguish human from artificial intelligence through the lens of information design. We identify a fundamental asymmetry: while AI systems can strategically underperform to mimic human limitations, they cannot overperform beyond their capabilities....

Individuals might experience negative utility from not consuming a popular product. For example, being inactive on social media can lead to social exclusion or not owning luxury brands can be associated with having a low social status. We show that, in the presence of such spillovers to...

Green hydrogen may decarbonize sectors which are difficult to electrify, and the recent Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides tax credits to encourage hydrogen production. We analyze a model in which hydrogen produced using electricity replaces natural gas. The electricity may be procured from...

Forward-looking investments determine the resilience of firms' supply chains. Such investments confer externalities on other firms in the production network. We compare the equilibrium and optimal allocations in a general equilibrium model with an arbitrary number of vertical production tiers....