I explore alternative central bank policies for liquidity provision in a model of payments. I use a mechanism design approach so that agents’ incentives to default are explicit and contingent on the credit policy designed. In the first policy, the central bank invests in costly enforcement and charges an interest rate to recover costs. I show that the second-best solution is not distortionary. ...

Marshallian consumer surplus (MCS) is generally an inaccurate measure of welfare change because it neglects income effects. Suppose these effects overturn the usual demand response to a price change. Then, the deadweight loss from a distortionary tax or subsidy has the wrong sign, that is, there is a spurious deadweight gain. JEL Classification: D11, D6.

In this paper we investigate the behavior of an overlapping dynasties growth model with factor taxation to determine how much the natives of a country absorbing a flow of immigrants can use shifts in factor taxation or deficit finance to redistribute immigrant income to themselves. In an economy in which government expenditure is a fixed share of net national product, policy-makers can minimize...

This paper deals with second-best pollution taxation by investigating allocations instead of the corresponding tax rates. Assuming certain restrictions on utility and that the marginal revenue from environmental taxation is positive, it is shown that environmental quality is higher in second best where only distortionary taxes are used to finance public expenditures than in the first-best optim...

I undertake a quantitative investigation into the short run effects of changes in the timing of taxes for model economies in which heterogeneous households face a borrowing constraint. A combination of the distortionary effects of non-lump-sum taxation and the liquidity effects arising from the asset market structure are found to imply large real effects from tax changes. For example, a tempora...

This note characterizes the optimal base for commodity taxation in the presence of administrative fixed costs varying across goods. For low tax rates, the optimal base comprises all commodities whose discouragement index is greater than the ratio of their administrative costs to the tax they yield. JEL classification numbers: H21. Mots-clés : Taxation indirecte, TVA, assiette fiscale, coûts de ...