Intro -- Contents -- Series Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Part I Introduction and Motivation -- 1 The Need for Tax-System Analysis -- 2 Standard Optimal Tax Models -- Part II Building Blocks of Tax Systems -- 3 Multiple Behavioral Margins -- 4 Multiple Sources of Costs -- 5 Tax Base Elasticity...

This paper shows that an economic slump can induce a government to invest in fiscal capacity. Large negative income shocks stress the revenue raising capability of narrow tax bases, making an increase in tax base breadth desirable relative to its fixed implementation cost. A broader tax base...