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We characterize the optimal robust mechanisms for the allocation of private objects, where robust mechanisms are those mechanisms that satisfy dominant strategy incentive compatibility, ex-post individual rationality, and expost no budget deficit, and optimal robust mechanisms are the ones that maximize the expected sum of players' payoffs among all robust mechanisms. With a certain assumption on the payoff of the lowest possible type, we provide a complete description of optimal robust mechanisms with any number of players and objects.

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This paper explores the effect of the progressivity of income taxes on the distribution of income and consumption across households as well as the aggregate output in Korea. Using Korean administrative data on income and tax by income percentile,we find that the post-2012 progressivity of Korean income taxes is double the pre-2012 progressivity. By building a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, we quantify the long-run effect of the increased progressivity of income taxes on Korean economy. We find that the more progressive income taxes increase the government's tax revenue, while reducing the dispersion in income and consumption across individuals. However, the bottom decile of the income distribution is the only group that experiences a rise in consumption, while the consumption of all other income deciles is reduced. This is attributed to the large decline in the aggregate capital. Faced with the increased tax burden, high income earners reduce their savings, causing the aggregate capital and thereby output to decrease.

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This paper departs from the representative-agent assumption and investigates how optimal monetary policy should be conducted in a two-agent New Keynesian (TANK) model. Relative to a price stability motive that typically appears as policy prescriptions in representative-agent New Keynesian (RANK) models, heterogeneity adds a motive to spread aggregate fluctuations equally across all households. We show that the latter motive hinges on how fiscal transfers are implemented with the business cycle.