We study the effects of taxation in a model with a representative agent with time-inconsistent preferences: discounting is quasi-geometric. Utility is derived from consumption and leisure, and taxation can be based on consumption and investment spending as well as on capital and labor income. The model allows for closed-form solutions, and welfare comparisons can be made across different taxati...

We use newly available micro data samples from the 1911, 1921, 1931 and 1941 Canadian Censuses to investigate the impact of immigration on the Canadian earnings distribution in the first half of the 20th Century. We show that earnings inequality increased dramatically between 1911 and 1941, with most of the change occurring in the 1920s. This coincided with two of largest immigration decades in...

Salim Rashid (1990) purports to have established some facts about Adam Smith's scholarship, significant among which are (a) Smith's plagiarism, (b) the poor quality of Smith's arguments or ideas compared with those of his predecessors or contemporaries, and (c) Smith's inconsistent arguments regarding laissez faire. Alas, Rashid's case is faulty, as well as often misleading and vexatious. This ...