1. Political Economy and the Role of Government

1.1 Explaining the Scope and Growth of Government:

Aghion, P., A. Alesina, and F. Trebbi. "Endogenous Political Institutions." NBER Working Paper 9006, June 2002.

Ansolabehere, S., J. de Figueiredo, and J. Snyder. "Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?" Journal of Economic Perspectives (forthcoming).

Borcherding, T. "The Causes of Government Expenditure Growth: A Survey of the U.S. Evidence." Journal of Public Economics 28 (1985): 359-382.

Holsey, A., and T. Borcherding. "Why Does Government's Share of National Income Grow? An Assessment of the Recent Literature." In Perspectives on Public Choice. Edited by D. Mueller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Peltzman, S. "Voters as Fiscal Conservatives." Quarterly Journal of Economics 107 (1992): 327-362.

Persson, T., G. Roland, and G. Tabellini. "Comparative Politics and Public Finance." Journal of Political Economy 108 (2000): 1121-1161.

Persson, T., and G. Tabellini. "Political Economics and Public Finance." In Handbook of Public Economics. Vol. 3. Edited by A. Auerbach, and M. Feldstein. Amsterdam: North Holland, 2001, pp. 1549-1660.

Shepsle, K., and B. Weingast. "Political Solutions to Market Problems." American Political Science Review 78 (1984): 417-434.

1.2 Voting Models and Public Choice:

Laffont, J. Chapters 4, 5 in Lectures in Public Economics.

Lizzeri, A., and N. Persico. "The Provision of Public Goods Under Alternative Electoral Incentives." American Economic Review 91 (March 2001): 225-239.

Tideman, N., and G. Tullock. "A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices." Journal of Political Economy 84 (1976): 1145-1159.

1.3 Bureaucrats, Elected Officials, and Public Choice:

Alesina, A., and D. Rodrik. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth." Quarterly Journal of Economics 109 (May 1994): 465-490.

Auerbach, A. "Budget Windows, Sunsets, and Fiscal Controls." Mimeo, University of California - Berkeley, July 2003.

Banerjee, A. "A Theory of Misgovernance." Quarterly Journal of Eocnomics 112 (November 1997): 1289-1332.

Besley, T., and A. Case. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Empirical Evidence from the United States." Journal of Economic Literature 41 (March 2003): 7-73.

Fiorina, M., and R. Noll. "Voters, Bureaucrats, and Legislators: A Rational Choice Perspective on the Growth of Bureaucracy." Journal of Public Economics 9 (1978): 239-55.

Niskanen, W. "Bureaucrats and Politicians." Journal of Law and Economics 18 (1975): 617-643.

Poterba, J. "State Reactions to Fiscal Crises: 'Natural Experiments' for Studying the Effects of Budgetary Institutions." Journal of Political Economy 102 (August 1994): 799-821.

Romer, T., and H. Rosenthal. "Bureaucrats versus Voters: On the Political Economy of Resource Allocation by Direct Democracy." Quarterly Journal of Economics 93 (1979): 563-588.

———. "Median Voters or Budget Maximizers: Evidence from School Expenditure Referenda." Economic Inquiry (1982): 556-578.

Roubini, N., and J. Sachs. "Political and Economic Determinants of Budget Deficits in Industrial Democracies." European Economic Review 33 (1989): 903-933.

Shleifer, A., and R. Vishny. "Corruption." Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (August 1993): 599-618.

2. Taxation and Labor Supply

2.1 The Measurement of Efficiency Costs of Taxes:

Browning, E. "The Non-Tax Wedge." Journal of Public Economics 53 (1994): 419-434.

Diamond, P., and D. McFadden. "Some Uses of the Expenditure Function in Public Finance." Journal of Public Economics 3 (1974): 3-21.

Goulder, L., and R. Williams. "The Substantial Bias from Ignoring General Equilibrium Effects in Estimating Excess Burden, and a Practical Solution." Journal of  Political Economy 111 (August 2003): 898-927.

Hausman, J. "Exact Consumers Surplus and Deadweight Loss." American Economic Review 81 (1981): 622-676.

Hausman, J., and W. Newey. "Nonparametric Measurement of Exact Consumers Surplus and Deadweight Loss." Econometrica 63 (1995): 1445-1476.

2.2  The Theory of Labor Income Taxation:

Akerlof, G. "The Economics of Tagging as Applied to the Optimal Income Tax." American Economic Review 68 (1978): 8-19.

Allen, F. "Optimal Linear Income Taxation with General Equilibrium Effects on Wages." Journal of Public Economics 17 (1982): 135-144.

Atkinson, A. "How Progressive Should Income Tax Be?" In Essays in Modern Economics. Edited by M. Parkin and A. R. Nobay. London: Longmans, 1973, pp. 90-113.

Atkinson, A. Public Economics in Action: The Basic Income/Flat Tax Proposal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.

Diamond, P. "Optimal Income Taxation: An Example with a U-Shaped Pattern of Optimal Marginal Tax Rates." American Economic Review 88 (March 1998): 83-95.

Helpman, E., and E. Sadka. "The Optimal Linear Income Tax." Journal of Public Economics 9 (1978): 383-393.

Immonen, R., R. Kanbur, M. Keen, and M. Tuomala. "Tagging and Taxing: The Optimal Use of Categorical and Income Information in Designing Tax/Transfer Schemes." Economica 65 (May 1998): 179-192.

Maskin, E., and J. Riley. "Input versus Output Incentive Schemes." Journal of Public Economics 28 (1985): 1-24.

Mirrlees, J. "Exploration in the Theory of Optimal Income Taxation." Review of Economic Studies 38 (April 1971): 175-208.

Saez, E. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates." Review of Economic Studies 68 (2001): 205-229.

Sheshinski, E. "The Optimal Linear Income Tax." Review of Economic Studies 39 (1972): 297-302.

Slemrod, J., S. Yitzhaki, J. Mayshar, and M. Lundholm. "Optimal Two Bracket Linear Income Taxation." Journal of Public Economics 53 (1994): 269-290.

Stern, N. "Optimum Taxes with Errors in Administration." Journal of Public Economics 17 (1982): 181-211.

———. "On the Specification of Models of Optimum Income Taxation." Journal of Public Economics 6 (1976): 123-162.

Stiglitz, J. "Pareto Efficient and Optimal Taxation and the New New Welfare Economics." In Handbook of Public Economics. Vol. 2. Edited by A. Auerbach, and M. Feldstein. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1987, pp. 991-1041.

2.3 Empirical Analysis of Taxation and Labor Supply by Prime Age Men:

Blomquist, S. "Restrictions in Labor Supply Estimation: Is the MaCurdy Critique Correct?" Economics Letters 47 (March 1995): 229-235.

———. "Estimation Methods for Male Labor Supply Functions: How to Take Account of Nonlinear Taxes." Journal of Econometrics 70 (February 1996): 383-405.

Blomquist, S., M. Eklof, and W. Newey. "Tax Reform Evaluation Using Nonparametric Methods: Sweden 1980-1991." Journal of Public Economics 79 (March 2001): 543-568.

Blundell, R., A. Duncan, and C. Meghir. "Estimating Labor Supply Responses Using Tax Reforms." Econometrica 66 (July 1998): 827-862.

Blundell, R., and T. MaCurdy. "Labor Supply: A Review of Alternative Approaches." In Handbook of Labor Economics. Vol. 3. Edited by A. Ashenfelter and D. Card. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1999, pp. 1569-1695.

Bosworth, B., and G. Burtless. "Effects of Tax Reform on Labor Supply, Investment, and Saving." Journal of Economic Perspectives 6 (Winter 1992): 3-25.

Eklof, M., and H. Sacklen. "The Hausman-MaCurdy Controversy: Why Do the Results Differ Across Studies?" Journal of Human Resources 35 (1999): 204-220.

Fullerton, D. "Reconciling Recent Estimates of the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation." American Economic Review 81 (March 1991): 302-308.

———. "On the Possibility of an Inverse Relationship Between Tax Rates & Government Revenue." Journal of Public Economics 19 (1982): 3-22.

Gokhale, J., L. Kotlikoff, and A. Sluchynsky. "Does it Pay to Work?" NBER Working Paper 9096, 2002.

Hausman, J. "Labor Supply." In How Taxes Affect Economic Behavior. Edited by H. Aaron, and J. Pechman. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1981, pp. 27-83.

Hausman, J., and J. Poterba. "Household Behavior and the Tax Reform Act of 1986." Journal of Economic Perspectives 1 (1987): 101-119.
   
Heckman, J. "Comment." In Behavioral Simulations in Tax Policy Analysis. Edited by M. Feldstein. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982, pp. 70-82.

Kimmel, J., and T. Kniesner. "New Evidence on Labor Supply: Employment versus Hours Elasticities by Sex and Marital Status." Journal of Monetary Economics 42 (1998): 289-301.

MaCurdy, T. "An Empirical Model of Labor Supply in a Lifecycle Setting." Journal of Political Economy 89 (1981): 1059-1085.

———. "Work Disincentive Effects of Taxes: A Reexamination of Some Evidence." American Economic Review 80 (May 1992): 243-249.

Moffitt, R., and M. Wilhelm. "Taxes and Labor Supply Decisions of the Affluent." In Does Atlas Shrug? The Economic Consequences of Taxing the Rich. Edited by J. Slemrod. New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 2000, pp. 193-234.

Saez, E. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?" NBER Working Paper 7366, 1999.

Showalter, M.,  and N. Thurston. "Taxes and Labor Supply of High-Income Physicians." Journal of  Public Economics 66 (October 1997): 73-98.

Ziliak, J., and T. Kniesner. "Estimating Life Cycle Labor Supply Tax Effects." Journal of Political Economy 107 (April 1999): 326-359.

2.4 Taxation the Labor Supply of Married Women:

Eissa, N. "Taxation and Labor Supply of Married Women: The Tax Reform Act of 1986 as a Natural Experiment." NBER Working Paper 5023, 1995.

Mroz, T. "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions." Econometrica 55 (1987): 765-800.

Triest, R. "The Effect of Income Taxation on Labor Supply in the United States." Journal of Human Resources 25 (Summer 1990): 491-516.

2.5 Tax Rates and Taxable Income:

Aarbu, K., and T. Thoresen. "Income Responses to Tax Changes: Evidence from the Norwegian Tax Reform." National Tax Journal 54 (June 2001): 319-338.

Auerbach, A., and J. Slemrod. "The Economic Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986." Journal of Economic Literature 35 (June 1997): 589-632.

Auten, G., and R. Carroll. "The Effect of Income Taxes on Household Income." Review of Economics and Statistics 81 (November 1999): 681-693.

Bianchi, M.,  B. Gudmundsson, and G. Zoega. "Iceland's Natural Experiment in Supply-Side Economics." American Economic Review 91 (December 2001): 1564-1579.

Feenberg, D., and J. Poterba. "Income Inequality and the Incomes of High Income Taxpayers: Evidence from Tax Returns." In Tax Policy and the Economy 7 (1993): 145-173.

Feldstein, M. "The Effects of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income: A Panel Study of the 1986 Tax Reform." Journal of Political Economy 103 (June 1995): 551-571.

———.  "Tax Avoidance and the Deadweight Loss of the Income Tax." Review of Economics and Statistics 81 (November 1999): 674-681.

Goolsbee, A. "Evidence on the High-Income Laffer Curve from Six Decades of Tax Reform." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 99, no. 2: 1-47.

———. "What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation." Journal of Political Economy 108 (April 2000): 352-378.

Gruber, J., and Emmanuel Saez. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence and Implications." Journal of Public Economics 84 (April 2002): 1-32.

Lindsey, L. "Individual Taxpayer Response to Tax Cuts, 1982-1984: With Implications for the Revenue Maximizing Tax Rate." Journal of Public Economics 33 (1987): 173-206.

Sillamaa, M., and M. Veall. "The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income: A Panel Study of the 1988 Tax Flattening in Canada." Journal of Public Economics 80 (2001): 341-356.

Slemrod, J. "Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable Income Elasticities." National Tax Journal 51 (1998): 773-788.