eprintid: 10071341 rev_number: 17 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/07/13/41 datestamp: 2019-04-01 08:57:52 lastmod: 2021-12-29 23:26:21 status_changed: 2019-04-01 08:57:52 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Blundell, R creators_name: Preston, I title: Principles of Tax Design, Public Policy and Beyond: The Ideas of James Mirrlees, 1936–2018 ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B03 divisions: C03 divisions: F24 keywords: Sir James Mirrlees, optimum taxation, contract theory, project analysis, growth. JEL classification numbers: B21, B31, D82, D86, H21, H24, O22, O40 note: © 2019 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract: Sir James Mirrlees, co‐recipient of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, passed away in August 2018. This article outlines how his work has transformed economists’ understanding of their discipline – from the principles of tax design to the theory of contracts and beyond. By conceiving of policy questions in terms of information asymmetries between governments and taxpayers, Mirrlees demonstrated how to conduct convincing analysis of redistributive objectives together with incentive effects in the design of general tax systems and public policy more broadly. His ability to simplify complex problems in ways that reveal their tractable essence means that his work has yielded insights that have reverberated throughout the discipline. It has also proved highly fruitful for practical policy design. date: 2019-03 date_type: published official_url: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-5890.12183 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green article_type_text: Journal Article verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1643416 doi: 10.1111/1475-5890.12183 lyricists_name: Blundell, Richard lyricists_name: Preston, Ian lyricists_id: RBLUN25 lyricists_id: IPPRE90 actors_name: Preston, Ian actors_id: IPPRE90 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Fiscal Studies volume: 40 number: 1 pagerange: 5-18 issn: 1475-5890 citation: Blundell, R; Preston, I; (2019) Principles of Tax Design, Public Policy and Beyond: The Ideas of James Mirrlees, 1936–2018. Fiscal Studies , 40 (1) pp. 5-18. 10.1111/1475-5890.12183 <https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-5890.12183>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071341/1/Blundell_et_al-2019-Fiscal_Studies.pdf