Volume 2, Issue 1

Recent contributions to the theory of taxation argue that tax progression raises welfare and employment in the presence of labour market imperfections. This literature takes the endowment of workers with human capital as given. The present paper analyses the effects of tax progression in a model with endogenous human capital formation. We show that the effect of tax progression on human capital investment depends on the deductibility of the cost of human capital formation. With full deductibility, tax progression raises employment and welfare. With incomplete deductibility, in contrast, the effect of tax progression on employment and welfare may be negative.

This paper studies a revenue-neutral green tax reform that substitutes energy for wage taxes in an open economy with unemployment. As long as the labour tax rate exceeds the energy tax rate, such a reform will increase employment, reduce the domestic firms' unit cost of production and hence increase international competitiveness and output of the economy. The driving force behind these results is the technological substitution process that a green tax reform will bring about. The resulting reduction in unemployment is welfare increasing since energy, which the country has to buy at its true national opportunity cost, is replaced with labour, whose price is above its social opportunity cost.

The paper proposes an intertemporal equilibrium model of vintage capital and monopolistic competition. Reflecting a tradeoff between the number and capacity of new machines, investment may be extensive or intensive. External gains from specialization and rationalization result in distorted investment decisions. The paper compares the effectiveness of a general investment tax credit with a start-up subsidy that shifts the direction of investment towards a more extensive form. An optimal policy of investment promotion is derived.

The paper assesses the aggregate impact of exchange rate variability on EU trade. A small econometric model is constructed and estimated for five countries: France, Italy, Germany, the UK and Belgium. The results show that there exists a long-term relationship between trade variables and relative costs, demand, exchange rates and expected exchange rates. No such relation exists with respect to volatility. It is also found that while the most important determinants of trade variables are relative wages and demand, variability is also responsible for a decrease in the growth rate of these variables.

This paper offers an explanation for the development of international trade, foreign direct investment and the activity of multinational companies in developed countries after the Second World War. A two-country±two-sector±onefactor general equilibrium model is set up and applied in an evolutionary framework. The model features the stylized facts: exports and production abroad increase with falling distance costs, exports increase earlier than production abroad and companies in larger countries internationalize their production earlier than their competitors in smaller countries do.