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- March 2022 (Revised June 2022)
- Case
The United States National Security Apparatus, Multipolarity, and the Rise of Commercial Space
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan L. Rosseau
In 2019, the U.S. national security community crossed a Rubicon by declaring that space was “a war-fighting domain” and undergoing a major reorganization, including the creation of the U.S. Space Force, the first new military branch in over 70 years. Military and... View Details
- March 2022 (Revised March 2023)
- Case
Commercial Space Stations, Chickens and Eggs, and Demand for Activity in Low-Earth Orbit
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Brendan L. Rosseau
With the International Space Station set to retire in January 2031, NASA has made clear its desire to transition to commercially-led space stations in low-earth orbit (LEO). But the history of commercial station attempts has been fraught, characterized by a lack of... View Details
- June 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
The Lunar Gateway, Moon vs. Mars, and the Political Governance of Space Activities
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang
In 2017, the Trump Administration made a bold claim—that they would return the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface by 2024, this time to establish a sustainable presence to enable further exploration in the solar system. With the Artemis Program, NASA has... View Details
Keywords: Space; Space Economy; Aerospace; Nasa; Governance; Policy; International Relations; Infrastructure
- 2021
- Article
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjamin B. Lockwood, Afras Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation
By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details
Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory
- 2020
- Working Paper
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
- June 2020
- Article
Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation
By: Robert Scherf and Matthew C. Weinzierl
The normative principle of benefit-based taxation has exerted substantial influence on many areas of public finance, but it has been largely set aside in the modern theoretical approach to optimal income taxation, where welfarist objectives dominate. A prerequisite for... View Details
- February 2019 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
India: State Capacity and Unity in Diversity
By: Alberto Cavallo, Matthew Weinzierl and Robert Scherf
As 2018 drew to a close, India prepared to once again carry out the largest democratic exercise in human history, as in less than six months more than 850 million eligible voters would have the chance to choose their representatives to the Lok Sabha—the country’s lower... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation
By: Robert Scherf and Matthew C. Weinzierl
The normative principle of benefit-based taxation has exerted substantial influence on many areas of public finance, but it has been largely set aside in the modern theoretical approach to optimal income taxation, where welfarist objectives dominate. A prerequisite for... View Details
- December 2018
- Technical Note
The First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics and Market Failures
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Robert Scherf
- July 2018 (Revised September 2018)
- Case
Donald Trump and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Robert Scherf
In January 2018, President Donald Trump was full of optimism. He had just signed the most substantial legislation of his young presidency, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), making major changes to the tax code. Echoing his campaign slogan—Make America Great Again—Trump... View Details
- Book Review
Review of Global Tax Fairness edited by Thomas Pogge and Krishen Mehta
This timely volume (Global Tax Fairness, edited by Thomas Pogge and Krishen Mehta) on the proper taxation of multinational enterprises argues that several feasible, near-term reforms could substantially narrow the scope for tax avoidance by closing information gaps,... View Details
- November 2013 (Revised January 2015)
- Case
Obamacare
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Katrina Flanagan
One vote in June, 2012, decided the fate of President Barack Obama's crowning first-term achievement: universal health insurance. Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court cast the deciding vote to uphold the keystone of the reform: the mandate to purchase... View Details
- October 2011
- Article
The Surprising Power of Age-Dependent Taxes
This article provides a new, empirically driven application of the dynamic Mirrleesian framework by studying a feasible and potentially powerful tax reform: age-dependent labor income taxation. I show analytically how age dependence improves policy on both the... View Details
- March 2011 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Hungary: Economic Crisis and a Shift to the Right
By: Rafael M. Di Tella, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Jacob Kuipers
Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case's author, that provides suggestions for using this case effectively in the classroom. View Details
- Article
An Exploration of Optimal Stabilization Policy
By: N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew C. Weinzierl
This paper examines the optimal response of monetary and fiscal policy to a decline in aggregate demand. The theoretical framework is a two-period general equilibrium model in which prices are sticky in the short-run and flexible in the long-run. Policy is evaluated by... View Details
- April 2010 (Revised January 2013)
- Case
California's Budget Crises, Tax Reform, and Domestic and International Tax Competition
By: Matthew C. Weinzierl and Jacob Kuipers
How do (and how should) governments design fiscal policies to compete in a globalized economy while meeting internal policy priorities including redistribution? In 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger repeatedly declared fiscal emergencies as California's state budget... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised March 2011)
- Case
Ben Bernanke: Person of the Year?
By: Lakshmi Iyer and Matthew C. Weinzierl
In response to the economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009, the Federal Reserve greatly expanded the scale and scope of its activities. Though lauded by many experts for its actions, the Fed and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, faced harsh criticism from some public... View Details