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This paper reviews the literature on optimal taxation of labour income and the empirical work on labour supply and the elasticity of taxable income in Sweden. It also presents an overview of Swedish taxation of labour income, offers calculations on the development in effective marginal tax rates and participation tax rates, and estimates, using the difference-in-differences method, the impact of tax incentives on employment rates of elderly workers. After this background, we ponder possibilities for reforming the Swedish tax system to improve its labour market impacts. We suggest better targeting the earned income tax credit at families and low-income workers, lowering the top marginal tax rates, and maintaining the tax incentives for older workers

Atkinson and Stiglitz (Journal of Public Economics 1976) show that when the government has access to non-linear income taxation and consumer preferences are separable between consumption and leisure, there is no need for differentiated commodity taxation. This paper examines the empirical validity of this claim using consumption data from Finland. The data have extensive information on commodity demand, the use of public services and hours of work. When labour income is controlled for in a semi-parametric way, we find that capital income and housing expenses are negatively associated with hours of work, whereas the use of child care is somewhat positively correlated with labour supply. These results suggest that capital income and housing should be taxed whereas day care could perhaps be subsidised.

This paper provides an empirical examination of the relationship between fiscal balance and structural reforms using panel data from 25 transition economies. The results indicate that privatization and restructuring, via unemployment, affect the fiscal balance negatively. This finding provides support for ideas in theoretical transition economics that maintain that fiscal pressures are most severe in fast‐reforming countries. In contrast, price liberalization has a robust positive impact on fiscal performance. In addition, the results differ somewhat over different countries and transition time.

The paper analyses the benefits of earmarking the environmental tax revenues in a second-best world with asymmetry of information between government and taxpayers.Taxpayers are assumed to have taste differences over consumption of an environmentally harmful activity.The government, which cannot observe these preferences, pursues Pareto-efficient taxation involving compensation to the potential losers of tax policy.Within this framework, it is shown that earmarking environmental tax revenues on projects that are beneficial to the losers of the environmental policy may alleviate problems concerning asymmetric information and facilitate more efficient environmental policy.

Tax, and public-sector matters more generally, is high on the agenda of international development. This is clearly reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the United Nations General Assembly in September of 2015. SDG17 addresses the need for improving domestic resource mobilization (DRM) directly, and most of the other SDGs cannot be achieved without adequate tax and spending policies. To give just a few examples, SDG10 (reduced inequalities) will depend on government capacity to redistribute income, whereas SDG8 (decent work) requires that tax systems do not create an unnecessarily large burden on economic efficiency. Together these goals reflect the classic efficiency–equity trade-off, which is at the heart of public economics research and policy analysis. Finally, unless all households have sufficient market income (a highly unlikely scenario), the very first SDG (eradicating poverty) requires the presence of social safety nets, which must be financed by public monies. This is the backdrop, against which UNU-WIDER organized a WIDER Development Conference on the theme of "Public Economics for Development" in Maputo, Mozambique, 5–6 July 2017. The conference was wide-ranging, including papers and keynote lectures on all areas of public economics, as applied to developing country contexts. This special issue includes five studies from the conference. In what follows, we first reflect briefly on a set of key issues when researching the public sector in developing countries before summarizing the selected articles.

The adoption of the value-added tax has arguably been one of the most important tax policy measures worldwide, but is also one of the most heatedly debated. While some argue that the VAT has served as a useful tool to boost government revenue, others claim that it is also a regressive tax, contributing to increased inequality within the developing world. Using newly released high-quality macro data, this paper offers updated estimates of the revenue impacts of the VAT and the first estimates on its consequences on inequality at the macro level. The results from instrumental variable estimations reveal that the revenue consequences of the VAT have not been positive, contrasting results from earlier work. VAT adoption has not led to increased inequality, suggesting that the move to the VAT has not undermined equitable development.

Atkinson and Stiglitz (Journal of Public Economics 1976) show that when the government has access to non-linear income taxation and consumer preferences are separable between consumption and leisure, there is no need for differentiated commodity taxation. This paper examines the empirical validity of this claim using consumption data from Finland. The data have extensive information on commodity demand, the use of public services and hours of work. When labour income is controlled for in a semi-parametric way, we find that capital income and housing expenses are negatively associated with hours of work, whereas the use of child care is somewhat positively correlated with labour supply. These results suggest that capital income and housing should be taxed whereas day care could perhaps be subsidised.

Atkinson and Stiglitz (Journal of Public Economics 1976) show that when the government has access to non-linear income taxation and consumer preferences are separable between consumption and leisure, there is no need for differentiated commodity taxation. This paper examines the empirical validity of this claim using consumption data from Finland. The data have extensive information on commodity demand, the use of public services and hours of work. When labour income is controlled for in a semi-parametric way, we find that capital income and housing expenses are negatively associated with hours of work, whereas the use of child care is somewhat positively correlated with labour supply. These results suggest that capital income and housing should be taxed whereas day care could perhaps be subsidised.

Existing evidence of inequality aversion relies on data from class‐room experiments where subjects face hypothetical questions. This paper estimates the magnitude of inequality aversion using representative survey data, with questions related to the real‐economy situations the respondents face. The results reveal that inequality aversion can be measured in a meaningful way using survey data, but the magnitudes of the estimates depend dramatically on how inequality aversion is measured. No matter how measured, the revealed inequality aversion predicts opinions on a wide range of questions related to the welfare state, such as the level of taxation, tax progressivity and the structure of unemployment benefits.