We study optimal income tax progressivity in an environment where individuals are exposed to idiosyncratic income and health risks over the lifecycle. Our results, based on a calibration for the US economy, indicate that the presence of health risk combined with incomplete insurance markets...

This paper studies optimal taxation of earnings when the degree of tax progressivity is allowed to vary with age. The setting is an overlapping-generations model that incorporates irreversible skill investment, flexible labor supply, ex-ante heterogeneity in the disutility of work and the cost...

This paper computes the optimal progressivity of the income tax code in a dynamic general equilibrium model with household heterogeneity in which uninsurable labor productivity risk gives rise to a nontrivial income and wealth distribution. A progressive tax system serves as a partial substitute...

Changing the income tax progressivity in labour markets with collective wage bargaining generates a trade-off. On the one hand, higher progressivity distorts individual labour supply decisions at the hours-of-work margin, on the other hand, it reduces unemployment by exerting downward pressure...

In models of redistribution, differences in human capital are often the relevant source of heterogeneity amongst individuals. Presumably, the distribution of human capital can be manipulated through education spending. This paper examines the use of education as a redistributive tool when there...

Atkinson and Stiglitz show that with weakly separability, differential commodity taxes are unnecessary given an optimal nonlinear income tax. Deaton showed that with an optimal linear progressive income tax, commodity taxes are superfluous under weakly separable and linear Engel curves. Using...

This paper characterizes optimal income taxation when individuals respond along both the intensive and extensive margins. Individuals are heterogeneous across two dimensions: specifically, their skill and disutility of participation. Preferences over consumption and work effort can differ with...

We propose a canonical model of optimal nonlinear redistributive taxation with matching unemployment. In our model, agents are endowed with different skill levels and labor markets are perfectly segmented by skill. The government only observes negotiated wages. More progressive taxation leads to...

In this paper we characterize quantitativelya the optimal mix of progressive income taxes and education subsidies in a model with endogeneous himan capital formation, borrowing constraints, income risk and incomplete financial markets. Progressive labor income taxes provide social insurance...