We use a behavioural microsimulation model embedded in a numerical optimization procedure in order to identify optimal (social welfare maximizing) tax-transfer rules. We consider the class of tax-transfer rules consisting of a universal basic income and a tax defined by a 4th degree polynomial....

This paper, intended for researchers, introduces a stochastic method for calculating the optimal tax schedule based on taxpayer utility, population skill distribution, and wages. It implements and extends the classic approach to optimal income tax calculation introduced by J.A. Mirrlees. A...

When should you harvest a tax loss? Tax-loss harvesting is a strategy used to improve the net of tax returns of a portfolio, where an investor deliberately sells assets that have incurred a loss in order to use these losses to offset current or future capital gains. However, an important...

We challenge the global optimality of one-shot punishments in infinitely repeated games with discounting. Specifically, we show that the stick-and-carrot punishment à la Abreu (1986) may not be globally optimal. We prove our result by investigating tacit collusion in the infinite repetition of...