This paper studies the implications for the optimal policy of introducing an exogenous minimum wage into a standard public finance model. I present a dynamic general equilibrium model with a Ramsey planner deciding about public spending, labor income taxes and debt. I find that for sufficiently...

In this paper we study the optimal policy in the Uzawa–Lucas model with externality in human capital when agents value both consumption and leisure. We find that the government pursuing the first best can achieve its goal by a subsidy which depends on foregone earnings while studying and which...

This paper studies the optimality of a minimum wage law when it is used, jointly with a distortionary tax-transfer scheme, to redistribute income among agents with different marginal productivity. We build a dynamic and stochastic general equilibrium model with a Ramsey planner making decisions...

This paper investigates optimal fiscal policy in a static multisector model. A Ramsey type planner chooses tax rates on each good type as well as spending levels on each good type subject to an exogenous total expenditure constraint. It is shown that, like taxes, government spending policy has...

This paper characterizes the optimal fiscal policy when it is assumed that there exists a minimum wage below which no worker can be hired. The rigidity due to the minimum wage legislation can lead to equilibria in which the supply side of the labor market is rationed. One of the main results of...

We show that in the Uzawa-Lucas model with externality in human capital with agents that value both consumption and leisure, the government pursuing the first best can achieve its goal by subsidizing the foregone earnings while studying. The subsidy should be financed by a schooling fee. We...