The main goal of the thesis is to study optimal wealth and income taxation in the Spanish economy. What is the optimal mix between wealth and income taxation? How does it affect resource allocation and economic inequality? The answer to these questions may depend on features of the Spanish economy, such as the extent of inequality in income and wealth, the importance of intergenerational transfers and the portfolio composition of the households.

The research is structured in three stages. First, an exhaustive documentation of stylized facts and wealth distribution in Spain, with a particular focus on the age structure and portfolio composition. The second part focuses on the calibration of a structural model of wealth distribution in Spain. This modeling exercise will require the introduction of heterogeneity across agents in order to reproduce the high degree of wealth inequality observed in the data. In addition, the calibrated model will include the most important Spanish idiosyncrasies, which will be highlighted during the first stage of the research.

Lastly, we will deal with the main question of this research: optimal wealth taxation. To that end, we will simulate a range of possible tax schemes for a given amount of government revenue. Then we will gather the relevant information about how these different taxation policies influence relevant macroeconomic outcomes. In particular, we are interested in measuring how these public interventions affect production, uncertainty and wealth distribution.