Factor Income Taxation Research Articles

Public investment, factor income taxation, and intergenerational welfare distribution in an overlapping generations model

Public investment, factor income taxation, and intergenerational welfare distribution in an overlapping generations model

Globalization and Factor Income Taxation

Globalization and Factor Income Taxation

Globalization and Factor Income Taxation

Globalization and Factor Income Taxation

Still the Lands of Equality? On the Heterogeneity of Individual Factor Income Shares in the Nordics

As far as standard measures of income inequality are concerned, the Nordic countries rank among the most equal economies in the world. This paper studies whether and how this picture changes when the focus is on inequality of income composition, meaning the heterogeneity in individuals' factor income shares. We highlight the structural change taking place in all the Nordic countries since the early 1990s, with rising inequality in composition of individual incomes due mostly to a shift in capital incomes towards the top of the distribution. We link this result to changes in taxation of factor incomes, by highlighting the role played by the introduction of Dual Income Taxation reforms in the 1990s throughout the Nordic countries. Our estimates of the degree of income composition inequality allow a descriptive analysis of the role of functional distribution as a determinant of personal income inequality in the Nordics. We show that for Denmark in the period 2009 - 2013, Finland 1990 - 2007, and Norway 1991 - 2005, rising capital shares of income contributed to changes in personal income inequality, whilst for Sweden the evidence leads to disregard the capital share as a determinant of income inequality.

Time-consistent consumption taxation

We characterise optimal tax policies when the government has access to consumption taxation and cannot credibly commit to future policies. We consider a neoclassical economy where factor income taxation is distortionary within the period, due to endogenous labour and capital utilisation and non-tax-deductibility of depreciation. Contrary to the case where only labour and capital income are taxed, the optimal time-consistent policies with consumption taxation are remarkably similar to their Ramsey counterparts. The welfare gains from commitment are negligible, while they are substantial without consumption taxation. Further, the welfare gains from taxing consumption are much higher without commitment.

A NOTE ON OPTIMAL CAPITAL TAXATION WITH PREFERENCE EXTERNALITIES

This paper extends the Chamley–Judd framework by introducing preference externalities in a neoclassical growth model, and finds that the optimal capital tax increases with the extent of social-status seeking or negative leisure externalities. Furthermore, this paper finds that differences in leisure externalities lead to a distinct impact on optimal factor income taxes, and hence may serve as a plausible vehicle to explain the empirical differences in factor income taxation in the United States and Europe.

Factor income taxation in a horizontal innovation model

We consider the optimal factor income taxation in a standard R&D model with technical change represented by an increase in the variety of intermediate goods. In the model there are externalities both to working and to saving, due to market power by firms, incomplete appropriability of the benefits of inventions and the cost of economic activity in terms of public expenditures. Redistributing the tax burden from labor to capital will increase employment but, in most cases, reduce the rate of growth, with conflicting effects on the deadweight loss from the externalities. Under plausible calibrations of the model, the optimal tax rate on capital will be sizable.

Factor income taxation, growth, and investment specific technological change

Why do countries with different tax arrangements exhibit the same growth rate? We refer to this as a growth-tax puzzle. To explain the puzzle, we construct a tractable endogenous growth model with endogenous investment specific technological change (ISTC). Public and private capital stock externalities are assumed to augment ISTC. A specialized labor input exerts a positive externality in final good production. Our primary interest is to highlight the role of such externalities in explaining the puzzle. We show that the competitive equilibrium growth rate can be decomposed into a labor factor and a capital factor. Changes in factor income taxes, by affecting these factors, can have opposing effects leading to constancy in growth. Our model builds on the existing endogenous growth literature by providing an alternative, but compatible explanation for the offsetting growth effects of fiscal policy on growth observed in the data.

Factor income taxation and growth with increasing integration of world capital markets

In a closed economy, the infinite-horizon and the overlapping generations (OG) model prescribe diametrically opposite policies on factor taxation: the former argues that the growth-maximizing capital income tax rate should be set to zero, whereas the latter argues that it should be set as high as possible. This note investigates the issue by taking into account global capital market integration. We show that the long-run growth-maximizing capital income tax rate in a small open OG economy is decreasing as the economy’s capital market is increasingly integrated with the rest of the world, and will be equal to zero as prescribed in the infinite-horizon model once the degree of integration becomes sufficiently high.

Factor Income Taxation in a Horizontal Innovation Model

We consider the optimal factor income taxation in a standard R&D model with technical change represented by an increase in the variety of intermediate goods. Redistributing the tax burden from labor to capital will in most cases increase the employment rate in equilibrium. This has opposite effects on two distortions in the model, one due to monopoly power, the second to the incomplete appropriability of the benefi ts of inventions. Their relative momentum determines the sign of the welfare effect of the redistribution. We show that, for parameter values consistent with available estimates, the optimal tax rate on capital will be sizable.

Dynamically optimal R&D subsidization

This paper characterizes the optimal time path of R&D and capital subsidization. Starting from the steady state under current R&D subsidization in the US, the R&D subsidy should significantly jump upwards and then slightly decrease over time. There is a small loss in welfare, however, from immediately setting the R&D subsidy to its optimal long run level, compared to a time-varying R&D subsidy. The results do not depend on the financing scheme, namely lump sum taxation or factor income taxation. The optimal capital subsidy is time-varying under factor income taxation, but time-invariant when subsidies are financed by lump sum taxes.

Welfare Improving Taxation on Savings in a Growth Model

We consider the optimal factor income taxation in a standard R&D model with technical change represented by an increase in the variety of intermediate goods. Redistributing the tax burden from labor to capital will increase the employment rate in equilibrium. This has opposite effects on two distortions in the model, one due to monopoly power, the second to the incomplete appropriability of the benefits of inventions. Their relative momentum determines the sign of the welfare effect. We show that, for parameter values consistent with available estimates, the optimal tax rate on capital will be sizable.

Public goods, unemployment and policy coordination

Earlier literature on tax competition and policy coordination typically assumes that the labor market is competitive; a description less suitable for Europe, where trade unions have had a strong position in the labor market for a long time. This paper concerns factor income taxation and public good provision in small open economies characterized by capital mobility and imperfect competition in the labor market. We assume that each national government collects public revenues via taxes on capital and profit income, and that the revenues are spent on a public consumption good and a public input good, where the latter enters the economic system in terms of an ‘externality production factor’. We show that tax coordination contributes to higher welfare even if the labor market is noncompetitive. However, the relative overprovision of the public input good derived by Keen and Marchand [Keen, M., Marchand, M., 1997. Fiscal competition and the pattern of public spending. Journal of Public Economics 66, 33–53.] may no longer hold in the presence of unemployment.

Factor income taxation and growth under asymmetric information

This paper studies the growth effects of factor income taxation on capital and labor in an endogenous growth model with overlapping generations. Capital accumulation in our model takes place through credit-financed investments in a market with asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers. We show that, in the presence of asymmetric information, capital income taxation worsens the adverse selection problem in the credit market, which in turn introduces an additional adverse effect on growth. In so doing, our analysis provides a new argument in favor of a lower (higher) capital (labor) income taxation in funding public expenditures.

Optimal capital taxation and labor market search

In this paper I study the nature of optimal factor income taxation in a neoclassical growth model where search frictions on the labor marker generate unemployment. I show that the introduction of search frictions changes the Chamley–Judd result of zero capital taxation as follows: if the government is constrained to capital and labor taxation, the optimal capital tax is in general non-zero, but if the government has access to other tax instruments the Chamley–Judd result survives. Quantitatively, the optimal capital tax is small, in the range of −8 to 8 percent. The welfare costs of being constrained can, however, be quite large.

Optimal Factor Income Taxation in the Presence of Unemployment

According to conventional wisdom internationally mobile capital should not be taxed or should be taxed at a lower rate than labour. An important underlying assumption behind this view is that there are no market imperfections, in particular that labour markets clear competitively. At least for Europe, which has been suffering from high unemployment for a long time, this assumption does not seem appropriate. This paper studies the optimal factor taxation in the presence of unemployment which results from the union‐firm wage bargaining both with optimal and restricted profit taxation when capital is internationally mobile and labour immobile. In setting tax rates the government is assumed to behave as a Stackelberg leader towards the private sector playing a Nash game. The main conclusion is that in the presence of unemployment, the conventional wisdom turns on its head; capital should generally be taxed at a higher rate than labour.

Optimal Factor Income Taxation in the Presence of Unemployment

According to conventional wisdom internationally mobile capital should not be taxed or should be taxed at a lower rate than labour. An important underlying assumption behind this view is that there are no market imperfections, in particular that labour markets clear competitively. At least for Europe, which has been suffering from high unemployment for a long time, this assumption does not seem appropriate. This paper studies the optimal factor taxation in the presence of unemployment which results from the union-firm wage bargaining both with optimal and restricted profit taxation when capital is internationally mobile and labour immobile. In setting tax rates the government is assumed to behave as a Stackelberg leader towards the private sector playing a Nash game. The main conclusion is that in the presence of unemployment, the conventional wisdom turns on its head; capital should generally be taxed at a higher rate than labour.

Growth Effects of Income and Consumption Taxes

The effects of income and consumption taxation are examined in the context of models in which the growth process is driven by the accumulation of human and physical capital. The different channels through which these taxes affect economic growth are discussed, and it is shown that in general the taxation of factor incomes (human and physical capital) is growth-reducing. The effects of consumption taxation on growth depend crucially on the elasticity of labor supply, and therefore on the specification of the leisure activity. The paper also derives implications for the optimal intertemporal choice of tax instruments.

On the taxation of human and physical capital in models of endogenous growth

This paper studies the effects of factor income taxation and of subsidies to human capital accumulation in models of endogenous growth. It examines in particular how these effects depend on the specification of the leisure activity and on the technology and tax treatment of the sector producing human capital. It shows that the negative effects of factor income taxes on economic growth are stronger when the human capital sector is a market good. Under these circumstances, a subsidy to human capital accumulation can offset the direct growth effects of labor taxation, making it akin to a consumption tax. The paper then briefly discusses the normative implications of the analysis for the optimal taxation of factor incomes.

Growth Effects of Income and Consumption Taxes: Positive and Normative Analysis

The effects of income and consumption taxation are examined in the context of modesl in which the growth process is driven by the accumulation of human and physical capital. The different channels through which these taxes affect economic growth are discussed, and it is shown that in general the taxation of factor incomes (human and physical captial) is growth-reducing. The effects of consumption taxation on growth depend crucially on the elasticity of labor supply, and therefore on the specification of the leisure activity. The paper also derives implicatiions for the optiaml intertemporal choice of tax instruments.