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This paper introduces money into an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth. The model, due to Docquier et al. (2007), exhibits a positive intergenerational externality which precludes its laissez-fair equilibrium to be optimal even if the government can control the level of physical capital and set it to satisfy the modified golden rule. The main message of the paper is that, as long as the modified golden rule is attained, Friedman rule is optimal. The result holds regardless of the ability of the government to internalize the externality and control the level of human capital. Other results include: (i) violation of Friedman rule for a different second-best environment wherein human capital accumulation is controlled but not physical capital accumulation; (ii) existence of a negative relationship between money growth rate and the economy's endogenous growth rate, and (iii) non-uniqueness of Friedman rule.

The Ramsey tax problem examines the design of linear commodity taxes to collect a given tax revenue. This approach has been seriously challenged by Atkinson and Stiglitz (1976) who show that (under some conditions) an optimal income tax makes commodity taxes redundant. In the meantime, the Ramsey setting has had a second life as model of regulatory pricing. Boiteux (1956) studies linear pricing of a regulated multi-product monopoly that has to cover some fixed cost through markups on the different products (equivalent to taxes). While the scope of regulation has declined, Ramsey-Boiteux pricing continues to play an important role. This paper examines if the optimal tax and regulatory pricing approaches to Ramsey pricing can be reconciled. We incorporate the two objectives of revenue raising for financing the government's expenditures and a regulated firm's fixed cost into a single framework. The first major lesson is that the existence of a break-even constraint not only requires taxation of goods produced by the regulated firm, but also the taxation of other goods. Next, we consider the cases of independent Hicksian and Marshallian demand curves. In both the Ramsey solution imply so-called inverse elasticity rules. In the separable Hicksian demand case, the private goods (not included in the break-even constraint) continue to go untaxed as in the Atkinson and Stiglitz setting. In the case where Marshallian demands are independent, the effect of the break-even constraint spills over to the other goods which no longer go untaxed. We continue to get inverse elasticity rules; however, there is no covariance (or similar) term that captures redistributive considerations. Finally, we study the most celebrated general result obtained in the Ramsey model; namely, the (un)equal proportional reduction in compensated demands property. We find that the redistributive considerations are once again replaced by tax revenue terms.

This paper develops an overlapping-generations model with heterogeneous agents in terms of earning ability and cash-in-advance constraint. It shows that tax policy cannot fully replicate or neutralize the redistributive implications of monetary policy. While who gets the extra money becomes irrelevant, the rate of growth of money supply keeps its bite. A second lesson is that the Friedman rule is not in general optimal. The results are due to the existence of another source of heterogeneity among individuals besides differences in earning ability that underlies the Mirrleesian approach to optimal taxation. They hold even in the presence of a general income tax and preferences that are separable in labor supply and goods. If differences in earning ability were the only source of heterogeneity, the fiscal authority would be able to neutralize the effects of a change in the rate of monetary growth and a version of the Friedman rule becomes optimal.

Abstract
This paper estimates the pattern of consumer expenditures in Iran in an attempt to measure the welfare cost of price subsidies in that country and shed light on possible fiscal reforms. We use the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (Banks et al. (1997)) as our framework for estimation. We show that the general equilibrium fiscal interaction effects play a crucial role in determining the amount the government saves by eliminating the price subsidy of a particular good. Interestingly, eliminating price subsidies on utilities saves the government little by way of revenues and is welfare reducing. Comparing the gains for non-marginal with marginal reforms a la Ahmad and Stern (1984), we also show that the two approaches may not necessarily recommend the same reform.

This paper examines the role of cash transfers as a screening device when combined with in-kind transfers. It shows that linking in-kind to cash transfers makes first-best redistribution possible despite the government's inability to tell rich and poor individuals apart. Moreover, the maximal attainable welfare for the poor can be pushed beyond its first-best level by distorting downward the quality of the indivisible good the poor receive relative to the cash value of their net transfers. Using in-kind transfers alone, as in Besley and Coate (1991), leads to a third-best solution. (JEL D31, H23, H41)