The Economics of Taxation

This concise introduction to the economic theories of taxation is intuitive yetrigorous, relating the theories both to existing tax systems and to key empirical studies. TheEconomics of Taxation offers a thorough discussion of the consequences of taxes on economicdecisions and equilibrium outcomes, as well as useful insights into how policy makers should designtaxes. It covers such issues of central policy importance as taxation of income from capital,environmental taxation, and tax credits for low-income families. This second edition has beensignificantly revised and updated. Changes include a substantially rewritten chapter on directtaxation; a discussion of recent research in the chapter on mixed taxation; the replacement of thechapter on capital taxation with a chapter on the "new dynamic public finance"; andconsiderations of environmental taxation in both theory and policy chapters. The book is aimed atgraduate students or advanced undergraduates taking public finance classes as well as economists whowant to learn more about the topic. It combines discussion of theory, empirical work, and policyobjectives in compact form. Appendixes provide necessary background material on consumer andproducer theory and the theory of optimal control.

Bernard Salanie is Professor of Economics at Columbia University. Formerly Director of CREST (Paris), he has taught at Ecole Polytechnique, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and the Toulouse School of Economics. Salanie is the author of Microeconomics of Market Failures (2000) and The Economics of Contracts: A Primer (second edition, 2005), both published by the MIT Press.