This chapter analyzes the distortions created by taxation and the features of tax systems that minimize such distortions (subject to achieving other government objectives). It starts with a review of the theory and practice of deadweight loss measurement, followed by characterizations of optimal...

This chapter reviews the theory and evidence regarding the impact of taxation on corporate financial policy. Starting from a basic characterization of the classical corporate income tax and its effects, the analysis focuses on three areas of research: equity policy, debt-equity decisions, and...

This paper tests whether strategic uncertainty employs circuits in the brain that encode risk and utility, or circuits that are involved in Theory of Mind (ToM). We compare participants’ decisions in a stag-hunt game with an equivalent choice between Bernoulli lotteries where the probabilities...

Although relatively new, generational accounting has been used in 26 countries to evaluate the generational stance of national fiscal policies. Generational accounting calculates the size of prospective net tax burdens and lifetime net tax rates that different generations face under current...

The classic democratic theory of redistribution claims that an increase in the mean-to-median (MM) income ratio causes a majority coalition in the electorate to collectively demand more redistribution. The functional dependence of redistribution on the MM income ratio is tested in parametric and...

A credit–method value–added tax, a payroll tax, and a business–level wage subsidy can approximate the economic and distributional consequences of a subtraction–method X–tax. Such a credit–method progressive consumption tax has administrative advantages as compared to a...

The federal personal income tax has six statutory marginal tax rates: zero, 15 percent, 28 percent, 31 percent, 36 percent, and 39.6 percent. Because of the design of certain provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, an effective marginal tax rate may not always correspond to the statutory...

Discusses why the "lifetime" approach is not currently viable to measure distribution and how to judge the suitability of various annual approaches.