This paper studies the impact of corporate tax policy on the economy in the presence of both convex and nonconvex capital adjustment costs in a dynamic general equilibrium model. We show that corporate tax policy generates both intensive and extensive margin effects via the channel of marginal Q. Its impact is determined largely by the strength of the extensive margin effect, which in turn depe...

This paper develops a global model of climate policy, focusing on the choice between tax and cap-and-trade solutions. We assume that the world can be split into two regions, with two fuels that both lead to carbon emissions. Region A consumes all fuels, and is responsible for defining and implementing climate policy. Region B produces all of fuel 1 (oil), while fuel 2 (interpreted as either coa...

Governments around the world spend hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing retirement savings through various tax preferences. This paper reviews the economics literature on retirement savings, with a particular focus on recent advances using behavioral economics and high-quality administrative data. This literature suggests that tax subsidies may not be an effective policy to increase reti...

The notion that taxes should be simpler is one of the very few propositions in tax policy that generates almost universal agreement. The fundamental paradox of tax simplification is that despite this consensus, almost every year tax rules become more complex. This report, based on recent congressional testimony, examines a broad range of issues regarding tax complexity. Section II discusses the...

In this paper, we study the impact of tax policy on wage negotiations, workers' effort, and employment when effort is only imperfectly observable. We show that the different wage-setting motives – rent sharing and effort incentives – reinforce the effects of partial tax policy measures but not necessarily those of more fundamental tax reforms. We show that a higher degree of tax progression alw...

Over the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the share of executive compensation paid through stock options. We examine the extent to which tax policy has inuenced the composition of executive compensation, and discuss the implications of rising stock-based pay for tax policy. We begin by describing the tax rules for executive pay in detail and analyzing how changes in various...

Hardly any week passes by in ‘Old Europe’ without a discussion about tax reforms as a reaction to the fl at tax challenge of new member countries of the European Union (EU). By many observers this is interpreted as an expression of the race to the bottom that supposedly results from fi erce tax competition in Europe and around the globe. Instead of looking at descriptive fi gures of corporate i...