Regional productivity differences are large and provide scope for productivity-enhancing inter-regional labor mobility. Using an optimal taxation framework that combines an intensive labor supply margin with an extensive, productivity- enhancing migration margin, we explore the implications of...

We analyze the decision rules governing public employment policy, capital allocation between private and public sector, and the size of the public sector in a two-type and two-sector optimal nonlinear income-tax model with endogenous wages. The government can reduce wage inequality in the...

In an economy with both inter- and intra-region inequality and inconsistency between the objectives of local and central governments, this paper studies optimal non-linear federal (central) income tax under non-linear regional income taxes. Starting with a benchmark model without labor mobility,...

This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

By inverting Saez (2002)'s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize the redistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal) social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time and show great stability despite...