This Paper analyses the optimal timing of taxes on capital income. We show that the celebrated result that taxes should front-loaded with an initially high tax followed by a discrete jump to the steady state is knife-edge, hinging on capital having a constant depreciation rate. An empirically...

For many kinds of capital, depreciation rates change systematically with the age of the capital. Consider an example that captures essential aspects of human capital, both regarding its accumulation and its depreciation: a worker obtains knowledge in period 0, then uses this knowledge in...

For many kinds of capital, depreciation rates change systematically with the age of the capital. Consider an example that captures essential aspects of human capital, both regarding its accumulation and its depreciation: a worker obtains knowledge in period 0, then uses this knowledge in...

In this paper, the authors incorporate a positive theory of unemployment insurance into a dynamic overlapping generations model with search-matching frictions and on-the-job learning-by-doing. The model shows that societies populated by identical rational agents, but differing in the initial...

This paper provides an analytical characterization of Markov perfect equilibria in a politico-economic model with repeated voting, where agents vote over distortionary income redistribution. The key feature of the theory is that the future constituency of redistributive policies depends...

This article presents a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model explaining cross-country data on geographical mobility, unemployment, and labor market institutions. Rational forward-looking agents vote on unemployment insurance (UI). Agents with higher moving costs (larger attachment to...

We analyze positive theories of redistribution, social insurance and public good provision in a dynamic macroeconomic framework. Political outcomes are determined via repeated voting and driven by a conflict of interests between agents. Voters and politicians rationally forecast the impact of...

In this paper, we incorporate a positive theory of unemployment insurance into a dynamic overlapping generations model with search-matching frictions and on-the-job learning-by-doing. The model shows that societies populated by identical rational agents, but differing in the initial distribution...

In this paper, we introduce a positive theory of unemployement insurance into a dynamic overlapping generations model with search-matching frictions and on-the-job learning-by-doing. The model shows that societies populated by identical rational agents, but differing in the initial distribution...