Capital taxation and accumulation in a growing world economy with deficit finance

Abstract

Prior analyses of the incidence of capital taxation have assumed that the government budget is balanced and changes in capital taxes affect either other taxes, transfers, or government expenditures. The general conclusion is that an increase in the capital tax rate will increase the gross-of-tax interest rate and decrease capital accumulation. This article examines the steady-state effects of capital taxation on the gross-of-tax interest rate and capital accumulation within a two-country model of overlapping generations, which allows capital taxation to directly affect government budget deficits. It is shown that, under the residence tax system, if the after-tax-interest rate is greater than the growth rate, an increase in the capital tax rate willdecrease the gross interest rate andincrease the capital-labor ratio. This result holds even under the territorial tax system, with some additional assumptions.