Atkinson and Stiglitz (Journal of Public Economics 1976) show that when the government has access to non-linear income taxation and consumer preferences are separable between consumption and leisure, there is no need for differentiated commodity taxation. This paper examines the empirical...

In this paper we develop a discrete model of optimal taxation of married couples and empirically discuss the optimality of income taxation for this group. To this end, we derive the social welfare function which guarantees that joint taxation of married couples is optimal. We will contrast this...

We provide a comprehensive survey of the recent literature on the link between productive government expenditure and economic growth. Starting with the seminal paper of Robert Barro (1990) we show that an understanding of the core results of the ensuing contributions can be gained from the study...

A central finding of the modern labor market literature is that labor supply responses tend to be concentrated along the extensive margin (labor force participation) rather than the intensive margin (hours of work). Yet, the literature on the marginal cost of public funds (MCF) focuses solely on...

This study reviews, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, the links between composition and quality of public finances, on the one hand, and long-term economic growth, on the other, focusing on the EU-15 countries. Specifically, for a given level of the general government balance,...

Recent microeconometric studies of taxpayer' responsiveness to taxation have shown that intensive margin labor supply and earnings elasticities typically are modest and sometimes equal to zero. However, a common view is that long-run responses might still be large since micro-estimates are...

The Child and Dependent Care Credit (CDCC), a tax credit based on taxpayers' income and child care expenses, reduces families' child care costs. The nonrefundable federal CDCC is available to working families with children younger than 13 years old in all states, and nearly half of states...

We analyse the deadweight losses of tax-induced labor misallocation in an equilibrium model of the labour market where workers search to climb a job ladder and firms post vacancies. Workers differ in abilities. Jobs differ in productivities and amenities. A planner uses affine tax functions to...

The purpose of this paper is to present an exercise where we identify optimal income tax rules under the constraint of fixed tax revenue. To this end, we estimate a microeconomic model with 78 parameters that capture heterogeneity in consumption-leisure preferences for singles and couples as...