The purpose of the present paper is to focus on the potential inducement to retire earlier in the presence of social security and on the implied effects on lifetime savings. This problem is analyzed within the framework of a model of intertemporal utility maximization. The organization of this...

Between-family differences in expenditures and output reflect the effect of simultaneous increases in children's ability on the willingness of parents to transfer resources to them. Within-family differences also reflect the attitudes of parents toward disparity among children. In this paper we...

The purpose of the present note is to explore the structure of optimal income taxation/redistribution in an economy where the welfare of individuals depends in part on relative after-tax consumption, i.e., we specify individual welfare as a function of absolute and relative after-tax...

This paper examines the appropriate tax treatment of the family in a series of analytical models and numerical examples. For a population of taxpaying couples which differ in earning capacity, we derive the optimal tax rates for each potential earner. These rates depend crucially upon own and...

The present paper takes a fresh theoretical and empirical look into the relationship between Wagner’s law and economic development. It introduces human capital into a classic two-sector model of unbalanced growth. It shows that, as an economy develops, changes in the relative returns to human...

Tax evasion is universal. It depends on the economic and tax structures, types of income, and social attitudes. The theory of tax evasion has limitations since it depends solely on the attitude toward risk with full information regarding the tax administration’s behavior. Methodologies for...

This paper discusses in a systematic and comprehensive way the existing literature on the relationship between the growth of countries’ economies and various public finance instruments, such as tax policy, expenditure policy, and overall budgetary policy, from the perspectives of allocative...

Paper discusses the factors that contribute to the spread of corruption as well as the implications of corruption for markets and for public sector activities. It is argued that corruption can be contained mainly by a scaling down of the public sector activities that stimulate its growth

This paper discusses issues to be considered in designing “second generation” reforms. These reforms should focus on improving the capacity of the public sector to implement economic policies. The paper contrasts these reforms with those known as first generation reforms, which essentially...

Based on papers presented at the 44th Congress of the international Institute of Public Finance, this book, edited by Vito Tanzi, deals with public finance and macroeconomic policy in open, developing economies, with case studies of Chile, Mexico, Turkey, Korea, and the Arab oil exporting countries