This thesis consists of a summary and four papers. The first two papers are theoretical contributions within the area of optimal taxation and public expenditures under asymmetric information between the government and the private sector, and the last two are empirical contributions to the literature on local public expenditures. Paper [I] concerns the optimal use of publicly provided private goods in an economy with equilibrium unemployment. The paper points out that imperfect competition in the labor market gives rise to additional policy incentives associated with the self-selection constraint, which motivates adjustments in the public provision of private goods. It also addresses employment related motives behind publicly provided private goods. Paper [II] addresses optimal income and commodity taxation in a dynamic economy, where used durable goods are subject to second-hand trade. In our framework, the government is unable to directly control second-hand transactions via commodity taxation. We show how the appearance of a second-hand market affects the use of commodity taxation on the new durable goods as well as the use of income taxation. Paper [III] relates the existence and size of the flypaper effect to observable municipal characteristics. The analysis is based on a political economy model, which implies that the effect of a change in the tax base on the majority voter's tax share will be crucial for finding a flypaper effect. The empirical part is based on Swedish data on municipal expenditures and revenues for the period 1996-2004. The results show that the size of the flypaper effect varies among municipalities depending on the relative composition of grant and tax base. In Paper [IV], the composition of municipal expenditures in Sweden is analyzed by estimating a demand system for local public services, in which tax revenue collection is treated as endogenous. The estimation is based on the QAIDS specification and uses panel data for the period 1998-2005 and for six local public services. The results show that the point estimates of the income elasticities are positive (with one exception), whereas the point estimates of the own-price elasticities are negative and less than one.

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first one brings together the areas of public and labor economics by developing a hypothesis that relates optimal taxation and time use. Using Mexican data on household time use and consumption, we find significant substitution between goods and time in home production and different elasticities of substitution for different house-hold commodities. Adding these findings to the optimal tax problem, we show it is optimal to impose higher taxes on market goods used in the production of commodities with a lower elasticity of substitution between goods and time. This is an analog of the classical Corlett and Hague (1953) result, differing in that we allow for the possibility of substitution between goods and time in the production of commodities. The second chapter is about international migration, in the area of labor economics. On one hand, surveillance of the border between Mexico and the United States by the U.S. government has increased dramatically over the last two decades. On the other hand, undocumented Mexican migrants often make multiple trips between the two countries. Thus, my hypothesis is that these migrants respond to heightened surveillance by increasing the length of stay of the current trip. I estimate a semi-parametric hazard model following Meyer (1990). Using data from the Mexican Migration Project I find no evidence that border enforcement affects the hazard of leaving the U.S. by undocumented Mexican Immigrants. The last essay is about mother's time and children related expenditures. Using data from the Mexican Time Use Survey and the National Household Survey of Income and Expenditure from 2002, I examine the time Mexican mothers dedicate to taking care of their children and the amount of money spent by the household in raising children. The main contribution of this paper is that it analyzes child care time use and child care expenditures simultaneously. The age of the youngest child is the most important determinant of both child care time and money expenditures. It is the case that more educated mothers spend more money on their children. With respect to child care time use, more educated mothers spend more or less time with their children depending on whether they are working or non-working mothers. At all levels of non-mother's income, working mothers spend significantly more money relative to time in child care than non-working mothers. For both groups the ratio of money over time increases at a decreasing rate; however, for non-working mothers the income expansion path is much flatter. / text

This dissertation investigates the impacts of constraints on optimal government policy. The first two chapters provide a general introduction and review of the literature. Chapters three and four analyze education spending and institutional structure in an economy with informational asymmetries and employment matching frictions. The fifth investigates the impact of politics on government decisions over taxation and spending programs more generally. Chapter three analyzes the situation where governments can target education funds to specific observable groups (referred to as low and high productivity neighbourhoods/regions). The results suggest that it may be optimal to employ educational transfers, rather than cash transfers amongst individuals, to achieve social welfare objectives. This is becasue the former can reduce distortions created by the tax system. However, the value of educational spending in mitigating these information frictions may not be that large, and may in fact exacerbate such distortions. This suggests that an optimal education policy may be more regressive when there is a distortionary tax system in place. Further, we showt that even if ``equalizing opportunities'' is deemed optimal in the static problem, it may not be a reasonable policy goal when we extend the analysis to include dynamics. Chapter four is joint work with Afrasiab Mirza. We analyze an economy where heterogeneous individuals are uncertain about their endowments. The education system trades off the desire to capitalize on talent through specific skills training with the need to provide individuals with opportunities to learn about their career preferences through a broader education. The results consider the implications of various educational institutions for the income distribution and consequently welfare. Chapter five analyzes the dynamics of public spending, taxation and debt in a political agency model. Choices are made by short-lived politicians who can be only partially controlled through the electoral process. The main focus is to consider the impacts of binding limits on the public budget. The value of imposing this additional friction depends both on the extent to which politicians' goals deviate from their constituencies and how effectively the electoral process disciplines them when they misbehave. The results also suggest that the value of such a restriction depends on the fiscal position at the time in which it is imposed. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2009-11-25 20:25:29.12

Submitted by Cassiano Breno Machado Alves (cbmachado@fgvmail.br) on 2018-04-20T14:28:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação-v1.pdf: 11957652 bytes, checksum: 78e96faa5f48b92a4d06e05f0e10134b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2018-05-17T13:11:15Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação-v1.pdf: 11957652 bytes, checksum: 78e96faa5f48b92a4d06e05f0e10134b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-18T13:46:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação-v1.pdf: 11957652 bytes, checksum: 78e96faa5f48b92a4d06e05f0e10134b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-20 / Esta tese coleciona 3 dos projetos por mim desenvolvidos durante meu período de doutoramento na Escola de Pós Graduação em Economia da Fundação Getulio Vargas. No primeiro capítulo apresento um artigo que nasce da percepção que métodos variacionais levam à formulas para a estrutura tributária ótima que podem não ser válidas em ambientes mais complexos. Para ilustrar tal ponto desenvolvemos um modelo no qual a falta de ordenação da característica não observada pelo governo gera uma não validade das condições inerentes à aplicação de métodos variacionais. No segundo capítulo apresento o estudo do desenho ótimo da estrutura tributária em uma economia formada por casais levando em conta o processo decisório dentro do domicílio. Neste artigo mostramos o impacto na estrutura tributária ótima quando o planejador social toma a utilidade de cada indivíduo, ao invés da utilidade agregada do domicílio, como unidade básica na formulação do seu critério de bem-estar. A terceira parte aborda o problema de regulação em um ambiente dinâmico e discute como o fenômeno conhecido como o ratchet effect é afetado ao se permitir tipos randômicos em uma relação entre um regulador (principal) e firma licitante (agent) na qual o primeiro não pode se comprometer a contratos de longo prazo. Neste caso toda informação revelada influencia os novos termos desta relação. / This thesis contains 3 articles developed as a partial requirement for the degree of Doctor in Economics at Escola de P´os Gradua¸c˜ao em Economia from Getulio Vargas Foundation. In the first chapter, I present a paper disscuss situations where the variational method fails to identify the Optmal tax system. This paper is co-authored with my advisors Carlos E. da Costa e Humberto Moreira. In the second chapter, we study the feature of an optimal tax system when we take the family structure in account. This article is also co-authored with my advisors and Felipe Lobel a student in this same department. In the last chapter, we study the problem of regulating a firm in a dinamic environment and we study how the ratchet effect changes when the type of agent is a random variable.

Cette thèse étudie les conditions de taxation indirecte optimale qui permettent d'améliorer l'adéquation de la ration alimentaire des ménages français aux recommandations nutritionnelles. L'approche adoptée exige d'estimer un système complet de demande alimentaire afin de mettre à jour les élasticités-prix. Les comportements de consommation alimentaire des ménages sont décrits par une forme fonctionnelle AI (Deaton et Muellbauer, 1980). Deux spécifications quadratique et dynamique autorisant, respectivement, de possibles non-linéarités des courbes d'Engel et la persistance d'habitudes de consommation sont testées. L'estimation se fait par les moindres carrés linéaires itérés (Blundell et Robin, 1999) sur données de pseudo-panel. Une base de données s'étalant sur 156 périodes de 4 semaines, de 1996 à 2007, a été constituée par l'aggrégation en 8 cohortes de ménages et le regroupement de coupes transversales issues de TNS Worldpanel. Dans la lignée des mécanismes théoriques de taxation optimale initiée par Ramsey (1927), un application à un objectif de politique nutritionnelle permet de dériver les variations de prix, ou taux de taxe, optimales. Chacune apparait comme une fonction des élasticités-prix, directes et croisées, de la demande et d'indicateurs d'adéquation aux recommandations. L'impact des variations de prix sur l'adéquation aux recommandations nutritionnelles du panier alimentaire, ainsi les taux de taxation de produits optimaux sont estimés. L'incidence de ces scénarios de politique sur le bien-être des ménages et les inégalités nutritionnelles est abordée dans un dernier chapitre. / This thesis aims at simulating optimal prices satisfying public health recommendations in terms of nutrient adequacy. This implies to estimate a complete food demand system in order to compute price elasticities. Food consumption behaviors are described by an AI functional form (Deaton and Muellbauer, 1980). The demand system is estimated using the Iterated Least Square Estimator developed by Blundell and Robin (1999). Augmented specifications to control for, respectively, non-linearities in expenditure patterns and habit persistence are tested. We use French household expenditure data drawn from TNS Worldpanel covering 156 periods of 4 weeks from 1996 to 2007. Given the nature of our data, households are split into 8 cohorts. Issues afferent to pseudo-panel data are presented. Nutrient adequacy is defined using three nutrient only-based indicators: the MAR (Mean Adequacy Ratio), the LIM (Score des Composés à Limiter) and the SAIN (Score d'Adéquation Individuel aux recommandations Nutritionnelles). Optimal prices are derived following Ramsey's approach to optimal taxation; Maximizing social welfare under nutritional constraints results in optimal price variations or tax rates, each defined as a function of all direct and cross price elasticities and the above mentioned indicator for all food groups. Further developments allow to estimate the impacts of price variations on nutrient adequacy. Incidence on social welfare and nutritional inequalities is assessed in a last chapter.

[pt] O trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de um modelo para explicar a razão pela qual em algumas economias, especialmente a brasileira, se constata que, diante de choques à taxa de juros real, não se observa suavização da taxação, mas sim variações das alíquotas de impostos seguindo variações do ciclo econômico. Mostra-se assim formalmente a ligação entre a sustentabilidade fiscal e variações na carga tributária mais fortemente evidenciada em países em que houve a necessidade de passar por planos de ajustes fiscais - situação esta que pode sugerir a suscetibilidade à ocorrência de crise de confiança em relação ao cumprimento das obrigações de pagamento da dívida soberana, ou seja, probabilidade positiva de repúdio da dívida. A partir do modelo, é possível concluir que uma trajetória não fixa para a taxação pode se estabelecer como resultado ótimo diante de imperfeições no processo de estabilização fiscal. É um modelo que permite endogeneizar e escolher de forma ótima o superávit primário a cada período de tempo. / [en] This paper develops a model to explain why in some economies, and especially in the Brazilian economy, we see evidence that taxation is not smoothened when facing real interest rate shocks. Instead, tax rates vary following the economic cycle. We show through a formal model the connection between fiscal sustainability and the variation of the level of taxation, a pattern more often observed in countries that went through fiscal adjustment plans - a situation that might suggest the possibility of occurrence of confidence crisis regarding the payment of sovereign debt, or a positive probability of debt default. From the model, it is possible to conclude that a non-constant taxation path can be established as an optimal result in such economies. It is a model that allows choosing endogenously and optimally the necessary fiscal superavit in each period of time.

This thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four papers, which relate to environmental policy in the presence of transboundary environmental damage. Paper [I] concerns public policy in a multi-jurisdiction framework with transboundary environmental damage. Each jurisdiction is assumed large in the sense that its government is able to infuence the world-market producer price of the externality-generating good. This gives rise to additional incentives of relevance for national public policy in the non-cooperative Nash equilibrium. With the uncoordinated equilibrium as the reference case, the welfare effects from coordinated changes in public policy variables are analyzed. Paper [II] analyses welfare effects of coordinated changes in environmental and capital taxation in the presence of transboundary environmental externalities and wage bargaining externalities. In the wage bargaining between frms and labor unions, firms use the threat of moving abroad to moderate wage claims, which means that domestic policy infuences wage formation abroad. The specific framework implies welfare effects of policy coordination that correspond to each of the respective international interaction mentioned above. In paper [III], national governments face political pressure from environmental and industrial lobby groups, while pollution taxes are determined in an international negotiation. It is shown that a general increase in the environmental concern and the weight the governments attach to social welfare both tend to increase the pollution tax. However, allowing for asymmetries between the countries means that a general increase in the environmental concern has the potential to reduce the pollution tax. Paper [IV] studies national environmental policies in an economic federation characterized by decentralized leadership. The federal government sets emission targets for each member country, which are implemented by the national governments. Although all national governments have commitment power vis-à-vis the federal government, one of them also has commitment power vis-à-vis the other member countries. This creates incentives to act strategically toward the federal government, as well as toward other members.

This thesis comprises three chapters which share an emphasis on the importance of agent heterogeneity in different areas of macroeconomics. The first chapter shows that the introduction of heterogeneous risk aversion into a consumption based asset pricing model with Epstein-Zin preferences allows to replicate several features of stock markets such as the counter-cyclical variation in the equity premium and its predictability from the price dividend ratio. The second chapter complements a Mortensen-Pissarides matching model with individual savings for precautionary reasons in order to analyze the welfare effects of reforming unemployment insurance. Our fully dynamic analysis reveals significant transition costs that static comparisons miss. The third chapter is concerned with optimal capital and labor taxation when agents differ in their wage-wealth ratio. We find that if all agents are to benefit from a reform (vis-à-vis the status quo) capital taxes are abolished only after a long period. / Esta tesis se compone de tres capítulos que enfatizan en la importancia de la heterogeneidad de agentes económicos en distintas áreas de la macroeconomía. El primer capítulo demuestra que la introducción de heterogeneidad en la aversión al riesgo en un modelo de consumption based asset pricing con utilidad de tipo Epstein-Zin permite reproducir algunas regularidades empíricas de los mercados financieros como por ejemplo la variación anticíclica de la prima de riesgo y su previsibilidad a través del cociente precio-dividendos. El segundo capítulo introduce en un modelo de matching tipo Mortensen-Pissarides ahorros precaucionarios con el objetivo de analizar los efectos sobre el bienestar de reformas del seguro de desempleo. Nuestro análisis dinámico revela costes significativos de transición no presentes en comparaciones estáticas. El tercer capítulo investiga la imposición óptima de capital y trabajo cuando los agentes son heterogéneos con respecto a su cociente sueldo-patrimonio. Encontramos que, para que todos los agentes se beneficien de la reforma (respecto al status quo), el impuesto del capital debería eliminarse sólo después de un periodo largo.

Submitted by Alexandre Sollaci (alexandre.sollaci@fgvmail.br) on 2014-06-18T14:03:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_final.pdf: 924084 bytes, checksum: 00f8add6beec4e203ec650725f2a33bb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by BRUNA BARROS (bruna.barros@fgv.br) on 2014-06-27T19:17:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_final.pdf: 924084 bytes, checksum: 00f8add6beec4e203ec650725f2a33bb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by BRUNA BARROS (bruna.barros@fgv.br) on 2014-06-27T19:18:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_final.pdf: 924084 bytes, checksum: 00f8add6beec4e203ec650725f2a33bb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-04T12:08:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_final.pdf: 924084 bytes, checksum: 00f8add6beec4e203ec650725f2a33bb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-26 / In this paper, we try to rationalize the existence of one of the most common affirmative action policies: educational quotas. We model a two period economy with asymmetric information and endogenous human capital formation. Individuals may be from two different groups in the population, where each group is defined by an observable and exogenous characteristic. The distribution of skills differ across groups. We introduce educational quotas into the model by letting the planner reduce the effort cost that a student from one of the groups has to endure in order to be accepted into a university. Affirmative action policies can be interpreted as a form of ``tagging' since group characteristics are used as proxies for productivity. We find that although educational quotas are usually efficient, they need not subsidize the education of the low skill group. / Neste artigo, procuramos racionalizar a existência de uma das formas mais comuns de políticas de ação afirmativa: cotas educacionais. Nós modelamos uma economia com dois períodos, assimetria de informação e formação endógena de capital humano, Os indivíduos dessa economia podem vir de dois grupos diferentes, cada grupo definido por uma característica exógena e observável. A distribuição de habilidades difere entre os dois grupos. Nós introduzimos cotas educacionais no modelo ao deixar o planejador social reduzir o custo, em termos de esforço, necessário para que um estudante de um desses grupos seja aceito numa universidade. Nesse contexto, uma política de ação afirmativa pode ser interpretada como uma forma de tagging, já que as características de cada grupo podem ser usadas como proxies para produtividade. Concluímos que, embora políticas de cotas educacionais geralmente sejam eficientes, elas não necessariamente subsidiam a educação do grupo 'menos'habilidoso.

Submitted by Lucas Alves Estevam de Lima (lucasaelima@gmail.com) on 2015-07-06T18:54:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_lucas.pdf: 1226857 bytes, checksum: 0bfcc2903f4c75498fd9961c5b53ae21 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by BRUNA BARROS (bruna.barros@fgv.br) on 2015-07-07T12:23:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_lucas.pdf: 1226857 bytes, checksum: 0bfcc2903f4c75498fd9961c5b53ae21 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2015-07-09T12:13:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_lucas.pdf: 1226857 bytes, checksum: 0bfcc2903f4c75498fd9961c5b53ae21 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-09T12:13:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_lucas.pdf: 1226857 bytes, checksum: 0bfcc2903f4c75498fd9961c5b53ae21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-29 / This dissertation presents a alternative approach to deai with family taxation probiem. More specifically we modei lhe family decision as a Nash Bargaining where the pianner can choose optimally lhe disagreement utilities. We prove a Reveiation Principie for this modei so we can consider a smaller set of mechanisms, besides that we compute optimai mechanism gains compareci to other reasonabie mechanism through exampies. We discuss some implications o f lhe optimai mechanism. / Esta dissertação apresenta uma abordagem alternativa para o problema de taxação de famílias. Mais especificamente modelamos a decisão familiar com um modelo de barganha de Nash em que os o governo determina de forma ótima as utilidades de discórdia. Demonstramos um Princípio da Revelação para esse modelo de forma a reduzir a classe de mecanismos possíveis, além disso calculamos os ganhos do mecanismo ótimo em relação a outros mecanismos razoáveis por meio de exemplos. Discutimos algumas implicações associadas ao mecanismo ótimo.