With the standard non-linear income taxation framework with heterogeneity of preferences, in this paper the optimality of workfare as a screening tool is examined. It is assumed that workfare does not serve as a human capital investment, participation is mandatory, and administrative costs are negligible. Imposing alternative cardinalizations on individuals utilities allows for the possibility that the government optimally redistributes income to or from high disutility of labour individuals. Under either case, it is never optimal to impose workfare on these individuals. It is also shown that non-productive workfare can be an efficient policy tool, in contrast to the results found in
Properties of the optimal income tax for quasi-linear in leisure preferences are studied. With utilitarian or maxi-min objectives, closed-form solutions are obtained. Bunching occurs over intervals where the second-order incentive condition is binding. Whether this occurs depends solely on the skill distribution. The patterns of consumption and tax rates in the nonbunched range are independent of whether the second-order incentive constraints are binding. Bunching at the bottom can also occur if a non-negative constraint on incomes is binding for some households. The pattern of marginal tax rates depends on the skill distribution and whether it is truncated.
We study federal economies in which regional governments have responsibility for delivering public services and redistributive objectives apply. The implications of these for the assignment of revenueraising instruments and fiscal transfers, both vertical and horizontal, are considered. Models of heterogeneous regions of varying degrees of complexity and generality are constructed. For each case, we determine what fiscal instruments must be given to the regions and what intergovernmental transfers must be made in order that the social optimum is achieved. With heterogenous households and regions, the social optimum can be decentralized by making regions responsible for redistribution and implementing equalization transfers that depend on the number of households of each type.
Regions inhabited with an immobile population of disabled and able individuals compete to attract mobile firms that provide jobs. The redistributive goal of regional governments is to support the disabled, who cannot work. Able individuals may work, be involuntary unemployed because of frictions in the labor market, or choose to be voluntary unemployed. Labor force participation decisions depend on regional redistributive policies. Both the size of workforce and tax on firms affect profits and therefore, firms’ location decisions. Allowing regions to engage in tax competition may be efficient. If regions cannot tax firms, they compete by implementing inefficient redistributive policies.
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