This paper investigates the importance of political ideology and opportunism in the choice of the tax structure. In particular, we examine the effects of cabinet ideology and elections on the distribution of the tax burden across factors of production and consumption for 21 OECD countries over...

This paper shows that introducing weak property rights in the standard real business cycle (RBC) model can help to explain economic fluctuations. This is motivated by the empirical observation that changes in institutions in emerging markets are related to the evolution of the main macroeconomic...

This paper studies the aggregate and distributional implications of Markov-perfect tax-spending policy in a neoclassical growth model with capitalists and workers. Focusing on the long run, our main fi ndings are: (i) it is optimal for a benevolent government, which cares equally about its...

The stylized facts suggest a negative relationship between tax progressivity and the skill premium from the early 1960s until the early 1990s, and a positive one thereafter. They also generally imply rising tax progressivity, except for the 1980s. In this paper, we ask whether optimal tax policy...

In this paper, we study a two-country dynamic setup with environmental externalities and potential model misspecification in relation to this public good. Under model uncertainty, robust policies help to correct the inefficiencies associated with free riding on public good provision, implying...

This paper uses a micro-founded DSGE model to compare second-best optimal environmental policy, and the resulting Ramsey allocation, to first-best allocation. The focus is on the source and size of uncertainty, and how this affects optimal choices and the comparison between second- and...

We welfare rank different types of second-best environmental policy. The focus is on the roles of uncertainty and public finance. The setup is the basic stochastic neoclassical growth model augmented with the assumptions that pollution occurs as a by-product of output produced and environmental...

We welfare rank different types of second-best environmental policy. The focus is on the roles of uncertainty and public finance. The setup is the basic stochastic neoclassical growth model augmented with the assumptions that pollution occurs as a by-product of output produced and environmental...

We study the importance of uncertainty and public finance to the welfare ranking of three environmental policy instruments: pollution taxes, pollution permits and Kyoto-like numerical rules for emissions. The setup is the basic stochastic neoclassical growth model augmented with the assumptions...

This paper uses a micro-founded DSGE model to compare second-best optimal environmental policy and the resulting allocation to first-best allocation. The focus is on the source and size of uncertainty, and how this affects optimal choices and the inferiority of second best vis-à-vis first best.