This paper reviews recent contributions to the theory of optimal taxation, particularly those that are policy-relevant. These include refinements of the Mirrlees optimal income tax model, optimal redistribution when workers make labour decisions along the extensive margin, generalizations of the...

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...

The authors show that, on the basis of a noncooperative equilibrium whereby pure public goods are financed by voluntary private contributions, a centralized agency may induce an efficient solution by an appropriate choice of subsidy on the individuals' contributions. They also show that a...

The non-cooperative provision of public goods is analysed in the context of a two-stage game in which club size is determined endogenously. Equilibrium club size and voluntary labour supply are shown to be inefficient. The impact of optimally-chosen fiscal policies using simple instruments is...

Despite the fact that all developed economies levy broadly-based indirect taxes alongside direct taxes, little theory is devoted to explaining the direct-indirect tax mix. Our purpose is to show that if different taxes have different evasion characteristics, some optimal tax mix emerges...

Tax and expenditure policies are studied in a federation with imperfectly mobile households. States implement a linear progressive tax and supply a public good. A vertical fiscal externality, reflecting the effect of the state policies on federal revenues, provides an incentive to state taxes...