Three essays in macroeconomic policy

This work analyses different fiscal policies related either to savings income or to household income. Its first chapter presents a theoretical model, covering different options for the international taxation of personal income. Using one unique framework, this chapter assesses the role played by information costs and their distribution between countries. The second chapter develops a quantitative model to assess the effect of pro-nativist fiscal subsidies on the fertility decisions of households, distinguishing among different kinds of tax benefits in order to evaluate theoretically and quantitatively why and by how much different tax instruments may have different effects on fertility. The third chapter enriches the existing literature by providing a model of endogenous fertility and heterogeneous households, where pro-nativist fiscal subsidies have a small average effect on the size of families, but a stronger effect on the fertility of poorer households. It also shows that inter-generational transfers are not independent from fertility decisions, although some degree of wealth persistence exists. An increase in inter-generational transfers is found to decrease the level of consumption for richer households, who prefer to decrease their level of consumption for continuing to endow their children with transfers.