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We introduce deep equilibrium nets (DEQNs)—a deep learning‐based method to compute approximate functional rational expectations equilibria of economic models featuring a significant amount of heterogeneity, uncertainty, and occasionally binding constraints. DEQNs are neural networks trained in an unsupervised fashion to satisfy all equilibrium conditions along simulated paths of the economy. Since DEQNs approximate the equilibrium functions directly, simulating the economy is computationally cheap, and training data can be generated at virtually zero cost. We demonstrate that DEQNs can accurately solve economically relevant models by applying them to two challenging life‐cycle models and a Bewley‐style model with aggregate risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A consumer's web‐browsing history, now readily available, may be much more useful than demographics for both targeting advertisements and personalizing prices. Using a method that combines economic modeling and machine learning methods, I find a striking difference. Personalizing prices based on web‐browsing histories increases profits by 12.99%. Using demographics alone to personalize prices raises profits by only 0.25%, suggesting the percent profit gain from personalized pricing has increased 50‐fold. I then investigate whether regulations intended to prevent price gouging increase aggregate consumer surplus. Two feasible regulations considered offer at best modest improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using recently developed model selection procedures, we determine that exchange rate returns are driven by a two‐factor model. We identify them as a dollar factor and a euro factor. Exchange rates are thus driven by global, U.S., and euro‐zone stochastic discount factors. The identified factors can also be given a risk‐based interpretation. Identification motivates multilateral models for bilateral exchange rates. Out‐of‐sample forecast accuracy of empirically identified multilateral models dominates the random walk and a bilateral purchasing power parity fundamentals prediction model. Twenty‐four‐month‐ahead forecast accuracy of the multilateral model dominates those of a principal components forecasting model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard models of labor adjustment assume that firms can change only the size of their workforce (the extensive margin) and not the number of hours of their existing employees (the intensive margin) in response to shocks. I propose a general equilibrium search model that allows for adjustment on both of these margins. The model includes on-the-job search that generates different vacancy filling and attrition rates across firms. I calibrate the model to a unique matched employer-employee panel of Danish firms and simulate two labor market policies aimed at promoting job creation: hiring subsidies and a reduction in the official workweek. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tariff bindings and administered protection are two characteristics of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that are little understood. Tariff bindings place a ceiling on tariffs that is not always reached, whereas administered protection provides all industries with some minimum import protection, effectively creating a floor for protection. How do these policies affect applied most favored nation (MFN) tariff rates that are enacted through the legislature? I model tariffs determined by a dynamic legislative process and show that low applied MFN tariffs are less likely with tariff bindings and more likely with administered protection than under purely legislated protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally study the strategic transmission of information in a setting where both cheap talk and money can be used. Theoretically, many equilibria exist side by side, in which senders use either costless messages, money, or both. We find that senders prefer to communicate through costless messages. Only when the interest disalignment between sender and receiver increases does cheap talk tend to break down and high sender types start burning money to enhance the credibility of their costless messages. A behavioral model assuming that sellers bear a cost of lying fits the data best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a new dynamic general equilibrium model to explain firm entry, exit, and relocation decisions in an urban economy with multiple locations and agglomeration externalities. We characterize the stationary distribution of firms that arises in equilibrium. We estimate the parameters of the model using a method of moments estimator. Using unique panel data collected by Dun and Bradstreet, we find that agglomeration externalities increase the productivity of firms by up to 8%. Economic policies that subsidize firm relocations to the central business district increase agglomeration externalities in that area. They also increase economic welfare in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We formulate and solve the problem of a homeowner who wants to sell her house for the maximum possible price net of transactions costs. We estimate this model using data on transaction histories for 780 residential properties in England. The estimated model fits list price dynamics and other key features of the data. In particular, a tiny menu cost of changing the listing price, as little as ten thousandths of 1% of the house value, is sufficient to explain the high degree of stickiness of listing prices observed in the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine effects of labor income taxation in life-cycle models with human capital accumulation. In this case, the opportunity cost of time equals the wage plus returns to work experience. This has several interesting consequences: First, the data appear consistent with larger labor supply elasticities than prior work suggests. Second, contrary to conventional wisdom, permanent tax changes can have larger effects on current labor supply than temporary changes. Third, human capital dampens responses of young workers to transitory tax changes. Fourth, labor supply elasticities increase with age. Fifth, human capital amplifies the effect of permanent tax changes in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a matching model of the labor market in the presence of uncertainty and learning about ability that provides a simple unified framework for analyzing the dynamics of jobs and wages within firms and in the labor market. The model allows for different degrees of generality of ability as well as speeds of learning across jobs and firms. Equilibrium assignments and wages are consistent with a broad range of empirical findings on careers, suggest a novel interpretation for well-documented patterns, and help explain features of careers usually thought difficult to reconcile with the presence of uncertainty and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We generalize a search, matching, and bargaining model to allow individuals to acquire productivity-enhancing schooling prior to labor market entry. In general, search frictions and weakness in bargaining position contribute to underinvestment in schooling from an efficiency perspective. Using estimates of a general equilibrium version of the model in which firm vacancy creation decisions are included, we find that minimum wages and schooling subsidies improve aggregate welfare, but have very different welfare impacts across the ability distribution. In particular, policies that maximize the average welfare of workers have strongly negative effects on the welfare of the least able. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do elementary statistics or equilibrium theory deliver any insight regarding how we should argue in debates? We provide an answer in a model in which each discussant wants to convince the audience that a specific state holds. If the discussants' payoffs in the audience's posterior are concave above and convex below the prior and exhibit loss aversion, then the leading discussant should give precedence to the weaker argument, and the follower should respond to a weak argument weakly and to a strong argument strongly. Such characterizations are also obtained for the case of choosing between independent and correlated arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, unemployment, job finding, and separation rates decline as worker age increases. To explain these facts, we build a search and matching model of the labor market that incorporates a life-cycle structure and features random match quality as well as human capital accumulation. The calibrated model successfully reproduces the empirical patterns of unemployment and job transition rates over the life cycle and generates plausible wage implications. We then explore the efficiency implications of the model and find that the differences between the market and planner allocations are more important for older workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the effects of wage floors on optimal job design in a moral-hazard model with asymmetric tasks and imperfect aggregate performance measurement. Due to cost advantages of specialization, assigning the tasks to different agents is efficient. A sufficiently high wage floor, however, induces the principal to dismiss one agent or to even exclude tasks from the production process. Imperfect performance measurement always lowers profit under multitasking, but may increase profit under specialization. We further show that variations in the wage floor and the agents' reservation utility have significantly different effects on welfare and optimal job design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study exchange that is bilateral but indirect-it involves chains of intermediaries, or middlemen-in markets with frictions. These frictions include search and bargaining problems. We show how, and how many, intermediaries might get involved in a chain, and how bargaining with one depends on upcoming negotiations with those downstream. The roles of buyers, sellers, money, and prices are discussed, allowing us to clarify some neglected connections between different branches of search theory. Pursuing one such connection, with monetary economics, we show how bubbles can emerge in intermediation, even with fully rational agents and perfect foresight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a recursive equilibrium algorithm for the numerical simulation of nonoptimal dynamic economies. This algorithm builds upon a convergent operator over an expanded set of state variables. The fixed point of this operator defines the set of all Markovian equilibria. We study approximation properties of the operator. We also apply our recursive equilibrium algorithm to various models with heterogeneous agents, incomplete financial markets, endogenous and exogenous borrowing constraints, taxes, and money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of rational expectations, there have been issues with multiple equilibria and equilibrium selection. We study the connections between determinacy of rational expectations equilibrium and learnability of that equilibrium in a general class of purely forward-looking models. Our framework is sufficiently flexible to encompass lags in agents' information and either finite horizon or infinite horizon approaches to learning. We are able to isolate conditions under which determinacy does and does not imply learnability and also conditions under which long-horizon forecasts make a clear difference for learnability. Finally, we apply our result to a relatively general New Keynesian model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the debate on fiscal multipliers, in the context of an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, featuring a rich fiscal policy block and a transmission mechanism for government spending shocks. I find the multiplier for government spending to be 1.07, which is largest on impact. The multipliers for labor and capital tax on impact are 0.13 and 0.34, respectively. The effects of tax cuts take time to build and exceed stimulative effects of spending by 12-20 quarters. I carry out counterfactual exercises to show how alternative financing methods and expected monetary policy have consequences for the size of fiscal multipliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the anticompetitive effects of land use regulation using microdata on midscale chain hotels in Texas. I construct a dynamic entry-exit model that endogenizes hotel chains' reactions to land use regulation. My estimates indicate that imposing stringent regulation increases costs considerably. Hotel chains nonetheless enter highly regulated markets even if entry probabilities are lower, anticipating fewer rivals and hence greater market power. Consumers incur the costs of regulation indirectly in the form of higher prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a model of international trade in which heterogeneous firms can expand through capital acquisitions. I show that demand elasticities are a crucial element in predicting which firms invest, in what location, and for what reason. High-productivity firms, who tend to sell goods at a low elasticity, invest for market access (tariff jumping). Middle productivity firms, who tend to sell at a higher elasticity, invest for productivity improvement. The relative value of trade costs dictates which incentive is larger. In equilibrium, trade liberalization can reduce aggregate productivity by reducing an important source of investment demand: foreign firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We set up a simple two-country model of tax competition where firms with different productivity decide in which location to produce and sell output. In this model, a unique, asymmetric Nash equilibrium is shown to exist, provided that countries are sufficiently different with respect to their exogenous market size. Sorting of firms occurs in equilibrium, as the smaller country levies the lower tax rate and attracts the low-cost firms. A simultaneous expansion of both markets that raises the profitability of firms intensifies tax competition and causes both countries to reduce their tax rates, despite higher corporate tax bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate the existence of periodic nonstationary equilibria with self-generating cycles in a simple model of random search. Our results provide a theory of synchronized sales based on product market search by heterogeneous consumers. That is, our model explains how it can be optimal for all sellers to follow a repeated pattern of posting a high price for several periods and then posting a low price for one period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study the effects of firing costs in an equilibrium model of the labor market with moral hazard. Layoff is an incentive device, modeled as termination of the optimal long-term contract. When the economy's stock of firms is fixed, firing costs could reduce layoffs and increase worker welfare. In the long run when firms are free to enter and exit the market, firing costs generate not only lower employment, longer unemployment durations, and lower aggregate output, but also lower welfare for both employed workers and new labor market entrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a two-dimensional structural model of learning under ambiguity in the context of clinical trials. Clinical trials offer an ideal environment to study learning under ambiguity. The randomization process found in these studies leaves patients uncertain to their actual group assignment. Therefore, patients cannot immediately attribute changes in health to the experimental drug. The article proposes the use of 'learning instrumental variables' to simultaneously update patients' beliefs of the treatment effect and group assignment. Patient learning is found to be faster when observable side effects are incorporated to account for the uncertainty in group assignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I develop a model of nonstationary relational contracts in order to study internal wage dynamics. Workers are heterogeneous, and each worker's ability is both private information and fixed for all time. Learning therefore occurs within employment relationships. The inferences, however, are confounded by moral hazard. Incentive provision is restricted by an inability to commit to long-term contracts. Relational contracts, which must be self-enforcing, must therefore be used. The wage dynamics in the optimal contract, which are pinned down by the tension between incentive provision and contractual enforcement, are intimately related to the learning effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the deterministic, nonparametric production frontier framework by incorporating financial development. Our analysis convincingly shows that (1) failure to account for financial development overstates the role of physical capital accumulation in labor productivity growth, (2) most of this overstated contribution stems from the efficiency-enhancing role of well-functioning financial institutions, (3) international polarization is solely driven by efficiency changes, and (4) increased distributional dispersion of productivity is primarily driven by technological change. Model's extensions to account for the growth effect of changes in the institutional environment only add to the argument about the overstated role of physical capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We build a general equilibrium model where growth is driven by two invention types: fundamental ideas that cause creative destruction, and derivative ideas that enhance the value of existing inventions. The model provides a new mapping from microeconomic, patent data to aggregate total factor productivity growth and the aggregate value of privately owned knowledge. We show how to measure the frequency of derivative ideas and the rate of creative destruction. We estimate that derivative ideas account for 70-80% of all patents and their presence more than doubles the value of knowledge capital relative to what the measured innovation rate might otherwise imply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using copulas to model the stochastic dependence of values, this article establishes new general conditions for the profitability of product bundling. A multiproduct monopolist generally achieves higher profit from mixed bundling than from separate selling if consumer values for two of its products are negatively dependent, are independent, or have sufficiently limited positive dependence. The profitability of monopoly bundling also extends to situations where a multiproduct firm competes with a single-product rival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial disparities in school discipline are believed to contribute to the persistent achievement gap between black and white students. In this article, I estimate the relationship between school discipline and achievement within a structural model, taking into account the spillover effects of disruptive behavior. I find that discipline has an overall positive influence on student performance and that the racial gap in discipline stemming from cross-school variation in discipline policies is consistent with achievement maximization. Integrating schools can close both the discipline and achievement gaps; however, overall achievement is reduced since schools are less able to target their discipline policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how the informational frictions underlying monetary exchange affect international exchange rate dynamics. Our perfectly flexible price model is capable of producing endogenously rigid international relative prices in response to technology and monetary shocks. The model is capable of accounting for the empirical regularities that the real and nominal exchange rates are more volatile than U.S. output, and that the two are positively and perfectly correlated. The model is also consistent with other standard real business cycle facts for the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among first marriages in the United States, grooms are on average 1.7 years older than their brides. Traditionally, this fact is explained by sex differences in income. We use a general equilibrium, overlapping generations search model economy to show instead that sex differences in fecundity are essential to account for the age gap at first marriage, whereas sex differences in income play a secondary role. Our model economy also accounts for other facts on the timing of first marriages that the literature has overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study how the general and specific details of a micro-founded monetary framework affect the determination of policy when the government has limited commitment. In the general framework, policy is determined by the interaction between the incentives to smooth distortion intertemporally and a time-consistency problem. Resolving financial and trading frictions affects long-run policy significantly. Policy response to fluctuations in productivity is quantitatively different across model variants, mainly due to the idiosyncratic behavior of the money demand. Other types of shocks, both transitory and permanent, affect policy in a similar manner across a variety of specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the restrictive nature of rules of origin (ROO) and on the role of diagonal cumulation in mitigating the protectionist content of ROO. Empirical evidence suggests that diagonal cumulation has beneficial effects on trade-particularly among spoke countries. We show that these patterns can be reconciled with a theoretical setting where heterogeneous firms buy intermediate inputs from domestic and foreign sources. The model finds that switching from bilateral to diagonal cumulation relaxes the restrictiveness of the ROO and leads the least productive exporters to stop exporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, the world economy has been dominated by a single currency accepted in the exchange of goods and assets among countries. In recent decades, the U.S. dollar has played this role. The dollar acts as a 'vehicle currency' in the sense that agents in nondollar economies will generally engage in currency trade indirectly using the U.S. dollar instead of using direct bilateral trade among their own currencies. A vehicle currency is desirable when there are transactions costs of exchange. This article constructs a dynamic general equilibrium model of a vehicle currency. We explore the nature of the efficiency gains arising from a vehicle currency and show how it depends on the total number of currencies in existence, the size of the vehicle currency economy, and the monetary policy followed by the vehicle currency's government. We find that there can be significant welfare gains to a vehicle currency in a system of many independent currencies. But these gains are asymmetrically weighted toward the residents of the vehicle currency country. The survival of a vehicle currency places natural limits on the monetary policy of the vehicle currency country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the effects of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) on the labor force participation rates of married women by estimating a dynamic model of labor force participation. Results show that the PDA increased the labor force participation rate of pregnant women by 8.2 percentage points, of women with a child less than one year old by 3.4 percentage points, and of women with older children by 1.5 percentage points. Counterfactual policy simulations show that the provision of unpaid leave will increase the labor force participation rate of women with older children by an additional 3.7 percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates spatial panel data models with a space-time filter in disturbances. We consider their estimation by both fixed effects and random effects specifications. With a between equation properly defined, the difference of the random versus fixed effects models can be highlighted. We show that the random effects estimate is a pooling of the within and between estimates. A Hausman-type specification test and an Lagrangian multiplier test are proposed for the testing of the random components specification versus the fixed effects specification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural VARs indicate that for many OECD countries labor force participation, employment, and the unemployment rate significantly increase following increases in government expenditures under a variety of specifications and identification schemes. Fiscal expansions also tend to increase real wages. Existing models have difficulties in generating such responses. We show that the empirical regularities can be reproduced with two additions into a standard New Keynesian model with matching frictions: (a) a labor force participation choice and (b) workers' heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do new rationales for trade agreements arise once imperfectly competitive markets are allowed? We consider several trade models that feature imperfectly competitive markets and argue that the basic rationale for a trade agreement is, in fact, the same rationale that arises in perfectly competitive markets. In all of the models that we consider, and whether or not governments have political-economic objectives, the only rationale for a trade agreement is to remedy the inefficient terms-of-trade-driven restrictions in trade volume. We also show that the principles of reciprocity and nondiscrimination continue to be efficiency enhancing in these settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We defend the forecasting performance of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) against the criticism of Christina and David Romer (2008, American Economic Review 98, 230-235) by assuming that the FOMC's forecasts depict a worst-case scenario that it uses to design decisions that are robust to misspecification of the staff's model. We use a simple macro model and a plausible loss function to illustrate how such an interpretation of the FOMC's forecasts can explain the findings of Romer and Romer, including the pattern of differences between FOMC forecasts and forecasts published by the staff of the Federal Reserve System in the Greenbook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship between the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and welfare in multiple-leader Stackelberg models. We formulate two long-run models of free entry of followers; in the first (second) model, leaders select their output before (after) the entry of the followers. We find that in both models, in contrast to the short-run models, the Stackelberg model yields a larger welfare and HHI than the Cournot model does regardless of the number of leaders; that is, beneficial concentration always occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by widely publicized concerns that there are 'too many' plans, we structurally estimate (and validate) an equilibrium model of the Medicare Part D market to study the welfare impacts of two feasible, similar-sized approaches for reducing choice. One reduces the maximum number of firm offerings regionally; the other removes plans providing donut hole coverage-consumers' most valued dimension. We find welfare losses are far smaller when coupled with elimination of a dimension of differentiation. We illustrate our findings' relevance under current health care reforms, and consider the merits of instead imposing ex ante competition for entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a common indivisible good allocation problem whose popular applications include on-campus housing, kidney exchange, and school choice. We show that the so-called New House 4 (NH4) mechanism, which has been in use at MIT since the 1980s, is equivalent to a natural adaptation of the well-known Gale-Shapley (GS) mechanism. We run two experiments comparing NH4 with the prominently advocated Top Trading Cycles (TTC) mechanism and NH4 with GS. We find that under NH4, the participation rate is significantly higher than under TTC. Based on a new ordinal test of efficiency, NH4 is more likely to Pareto dominate TTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes an explanation for shifts in the volatility of exchange-rate returns. Agents are uncertain about the true data generating model and deal with this uncertainty by making inference on the models and their parameters' approach, I call model learning. Model learning may lead agents to focus excessively on a subset of fundamental variables. Consequently, exchange-rate volatility is determined by the dynamics of these fundamentals and changes as agents alter models. I investigate the empirical relevance of model learning and find that the change in volatility of GBP/USD in 1993 was triggered by a shift between models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pareto principle is often viewed as a mild requirement compatible with a variety of value judgments. In particular, it is generally thought that it can accommodate different degrees of inequality aversion. We show that this is generally not true in time-consistent intertemporal models where some uncertainty prevails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the evolution of the degree of global cyclical interdependence over the period 1960-2008. Using a dynamic factor model, we decompose macroeconomic fluctuations in output, consumption, and investment into a global factor, factors specific to country groups, and country-specific factors. We find that during 1985-2008, there is some convergence of business cycle fluctuations among industrial economies and among emerging market economies. Surprisingly, there is a concomitant decline in the relative importance of the global factor. We conclude that there is evidence of business cycle convergence within each of these two groups of countries but divergence (or decoupling) between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We ask what level of migration would maximize world welfare. Welfare is assumed to be a weighted average of the utilities of the world's various citizens, but the weights are also country specific. Using a calibrated one-sector model, we find that unless the weights are heavily biased toward the natives of rich countries, the extent of migration that would be optimal far exceeds the levels observed today. The claim remains true in a two-sector extension of the model. All versions of the model assume that migration is the only redistributive tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I introduce risk-aversion, labor-leisure choice, capital, individual productivity shocks, and market incompleteness to the standard model of labor search and matching and investigate the model's cyclical properties. I find that the model can generate the observed large volatility of unemployment and vacancies with a reasonable replacement rate of unemployment insurance benefits of 64%. Labor-leisure choice plays a crucial role through additional utility from leisure when unemployed and further amplification from adjustments of hours worked. On the other hand, the borrowing constraint or individual productivity shocks do not significantly affect the cyclical properties of unemployment and vacancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an extension of the Taylor model with staggered wages in which wage setting is also influenced by reference norms. We show that reference norms can considerably increase the persistence of inflation but that the size of this effect depends on the exact definition (e.g., external vs. internal, symmetric vs. asymmetric norms). Using data on collectively bargained wages in Austria from 1980 to 2006 we show that wage setting is strongly influenced by reference norms, that external norms seem to matter more than internal norms, and that there is a clear indication for the existence of wage leadership (asymmetric norms). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a stylized theory of the volatility reduction in the U.S. after 1984-the Great Moderation-which attributes part of the stabilization to less volatile shocks and another part to more difficult inference on the part of Bayesian households attempting to learn the latent state of the economy. We use a standard equilibrium business cycle model with technology following an unobserved regime-switching process. After 1984, according to Kim and Nelson (1999a), the variance of U.S. macroeconomic aggregates declined because boom and recession regimes moved closer together, keeping conditional variance unchanged. In our model this makes the signal extraction problem more difficult for Bayesian households, and in response they moderate their behavior, reinforcing the effect of the less volatile stochastic technology and contributing an extra measure of moderation to the economy. We construct example economies in which this learning effect accounts for about 30% of a volatility reduction of the magnitude observed in the postwar U.S. data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial literature examines how the Pigouvian directive that marginal taxes should equal marginal external harms needs to be modified in light of the preexisting distortion due to labor income taxation. Additional literature considers distributive concerns. It is demonstrated, however, that simple first-best rules-unmodified for labor supply distortion or distribution-are correct in the model examined. Specifically, setting all commodity taxes equal to marginal harms (and subsidies equal to marginal benefits) can generate a Pareto improvement, as can a marginal reform toward the first-best. Qualifications and explanations for differences from previous work are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]