Feasible implementation of taxation methods

This paper studies implementation of taxation methods in one-commodity environments in which the incomes of the agents are unknown to the planner. Feasibility out of equilibrium imposes that the mechanism depend on the environment. We present two mechanisms. The first one, which requires complete information, implements every taxation method in Nash, strong and coalition-proof equilibrium. The second, where informational requirements are relaxed, implements a large class of consistent and monotone methods in subgame perfect equilibrium. Neither mechanism employs the off-equilibrium devices used by the general theory. Under fully private information no method is implementable. Received: 12 March 1997 / Accepted: 21 July 1998