Labor Tax Rates Research Articles

Optimal labor income taxation in a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model

This paper presents a new approach to the two-sector optimal taxation problem. We derive the optimal labor income tax rate which depends on factor intensity across sectors. It is the labor intensity that determines the initial wage rate, and therefore the optimal labor tax rate. We show that an increase in the initial relative price of consumption goods decreases the optimal tax rate on labor income in the case that the consumption goods sector is capital-intensive while it increases the optimal tax rate on labor income in the case that the investment goods sector is capital-intensive.

Optimal Taxation of Risky Human Capital*

AbstractIn a two‐period life‐cycle model with ex ante homogeneous households, earnings risk, and a general earnings function, we derive the optimal linear labor tax rate and optimal linear education subsidies. The optimal income tax trades off social insurance against incentives to work. Education subsidies are not used for social insurance, but they are only targeted at offsetting the distortions of the labor tax and internalizing a fiscal externality. Both optimal education subsidies and tax rates increase if labor and education are more complementary, because education subsidies indirectly lower labor tax distortions by stimulating labor supply. Optimal education subsidies (taxes) also correct non‐tax distortions arising from missing insurance markets. Education subsidies internalize a positive (negative) fiscal externality if there is underinvestment (overinvestment) in education because of risk. Education policy unambiguously allows for more social insurance if education is a risky activity. However, if education hedges against labor‐market risk, optimal tax rates could be lower than in the case without education subsidies.

The EAGLE. A model for policy analysis of macroeconomic interdependence in the euro area

We develop a 4-region macroeconomic model of the euro area and the world economy. The model (EAGLE, Euro Area and Global Economy model) is microfounded and designed for conducting quantitative policy analysis of macroeconomic interdependence across regions in the euro area and between the euro area and the world economy. Specifically, we simulate a permanent reduction in labor tax rates in the euro area. The effects on real activity are expansionary in both the short run and long run. Implementing reforms simultaneously across regions would produce extra benefits and make the macroeconomic performance in the euro area more even.

Tax reform and coordination in a currency union

We propose a two-country DSGE model to analyze short-term and long-term impact of a modification of consumption and labor tax rate in one country in a currency union. The model embodies the fact that firms differ in their pricing behavior after a VAT tax increase. Due to the common monetary policy, national tax policies have large spill-overs on the rest of the currency union. Furthermore, a fiscal devaluation is different from a nominal devaluation due to the common monetary policy.

INDETERMINACY AND PERIOD LENGTH UNDER BALANCED BUDGET RULES

We analyze the importance of the frequency of decision making for macroeconomic dynamics, in the context of a simple, well-known business cycle model with balanced budget rules. We explain how the frequency of decision making (period length) and the measurement unit of time (calibration frequency) differ and examine how local stability is affected by changes in the period length. We find that as the period grows longer, indeterminacy occurs less often. This may have significant quantitative implications: for the model at hand, there is a wide range of economically relevant labor tax rates (from 30% to 38%) for which the continuous-time model gives indeterminacy, whereas the discrete-time model has determinate dynamics.

Optimal government spending with labor market frictions

We study optimal government spending in a business cycle model with labor income taxes and unemployment due to hiring costs. Labor market frictions raise the optimal steady state ratio of government spending to private consumption. The labor tax rate is higher since profits are taxed that arise from employed workers which save hirings costs. For calibrated examples, the quantitative effect of labor market frictions on optimal fiscal policy is small. In the short run, optimal policy involves a strongly procyclical reaction of the tax rate to technology and preference shocks, while the ratio of public to private spending is close to flat. This ratio is, however, markedly countercyclical if taxes are constrained to be constant over the cycle.

FIRST-BEST FISCAL POLICY WITH SOCIAL STATUS*

This paper examines the …rst-best …scal policy in a stochastic, in…nite-horizon representative agent model that exhibits consumption-enhanced as well as wealth-enhanced social status in the household utility. We show that the …rst-best labor tax rate is a positive constant that is used to correct negative consumption externalities. The …rst-best tax rate on capital income is also positive in order to overturn agents’status-seeking capital over-accumulation. Moreover, we …nd that in sharp contrast to a conventional automatic stabilizer, the …rst-best capital tax rate moves in the opposite direction with shocks to …rms’production technology, thus exacerbating the business cycle.

Some Unpleasant Properties of Log-Linearized Solutions When the Nominal Rate is Zero

Does fiscal policy have large and qualitatively different effects on the economy when the nominal interest rate is zero? An emerging consensus in the New Keynesian (NK) literature is that the answer to this question is yes. Evidence presented here suggests that the NK model's implications for fiscal policy at the zero bound may not be all that different from its implications for policy away from it. For a range of empirically relevant parameterizations, employment increases when the labor tax rate is cut and the government purchase multiplier is less than 1.05.

An Evaluation of the Revenue Side as a Source of Fiscal Consolidation in High Debt Economies

Unsustainable levels of debt in some European economies are causing considerable strain in the Euro area. Successful debt consolidation in high debt economies is one of the most important important objective for the European policy makers. I use a dynamic general equilibrium closed economy model to compute the dynamic Laffer Curves for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain for different class of taxes. The general equilibrium effects of the interaction of labor tax, consumption tax and capital tax is demonstrated. Location of each economy on its Laffer curve suggests that there exists a scope for considerable revenue generation by raising consumption and labor tax rates but no such possibilities exist for capital tax rate. Thus revenue generation with certain tax rates as instruments, may hold a key to successful and sustained debt reduction.

New Keynesian dynamics in a low interest rate environment

Recent research has found that the dynamic properties of the New Keynesian model are unorthodox when the nominal interest rate is zero. Improvements in technology and reductions in the labor tax rate lower economic activity and the size of the government purchase output multiplier is very large. This paper provides evidence that these results are not empirically relevant. We show that a prototypical New Keynesian model fit to Japanese data exhibits orthodox dynamics during Japan's episode with zero interest rates. We then demonstrate that this specification is more consistent with outcomes in Japan than alternative specifications that have unorthodox properties.

Public Infrastructure Investment, Output Dynamics, and Balanced Budget Fiscal Rules

We study the dynamic output and welfare effects of public infrastructure investment under a balanced budget fiscal rule, using an overlapping generations model of a small open economy. The government finances public investment by employing distortionary labor taxes. We find a negative short-run output multiplier, which (in absolute terms) exceeds the positive long-run output multiplier. In contrast to conventional results regarding public investment shocks, we obtain dampened cycles in output and the labor tax rate. The cyclical dynamics are induced by the interaction of households' finite life spans, the wealth effect on labor supply, and the balanced budget fiscal rule. Finally, we show that, for a plausible calibration of our model, households' lifetime welfare improves.

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The Valuation and Strategy of Foreign Operations Under Stochastic Price: A Real Options Model

Many multinational firms are facing diminishing profit margins in their home countries and, as a result, may move their manufacturing facilities to foreign countries to seek the benefits of lower labor costs and tax rates. Inspired by the real option models of Moon (2010) and Wu (2010), we propose a framework to explore how the fluctuations of price, cost reduction, and tax benefit factors affect the timing and the valuation of foreign investments. The sensitivity towards corporate value (real option value) and price threshold is then analyzed in illustrations. The results indicate that price drift and price volatility have opposing effects on corporate value and price threshold. In addition, the effects of tax and cost reduction factors on price threshold depend on the range of price elasticity in the demand. This study confirms that multinational firms would always seek domestic or foreign investment opportunities with relatively lower costs, tax rates, and reduced market risks as they relate to profit maximization in a global setting. Finally, this work suggests that the decision rules for the optimal entry of foreign operations significantly depend on the price elasticity of demand.

New Keynesian Dynamics in a Low Interest Rate Environment

Recent research has found that the dynamic properties of the New Keynesian model can be very different when the nominal interest rate is zero. Improvements in technology and reductions in the labor tax rate lower economic activity, and the size of the government purchase output multiplier can be well above one. This paper provides evidence that the focus on specifications of the New Keynesian model that produce unorthodox results in a liquidity trap may be misplaced. We show that a prototypical New Keynesian model fit to Japanese data exhibits orthodox dynamics during Japan's episode with zero interest rates. We then demonstrate that this specification is more consistent with outcomes in Japan than alternative specifications that have unorthodox properties.

Indeterminacy, underground activities and tax evasion

This paper introduces underground activities and tax evasion into a one-sector dynamic general equilibrium model with aggregate external effects. The model presents a novel mechanism driving the self-fulfilling prophecies, which is characterized by well behaved (downward sloping) labor demand schedules. This mechanism differs from the customary one, and it is complementary to it. Compared to traditional labor market income, the income derived from underground labor activity is subject to a lower expected tax rate when considering both the probability of detection and the evasion penalty. During a belief-driven expansion, the household allocates more time to both traditional and underground labor supply. In equilibrium, this action serves to lower the effective labor tax rate faced by the household, thus providing stimulus to aggregate labor supply so as to make the initial expansion self-fulfilling. The mechanism here is akin to a “regressive tax”; the household's effective tax rate depends negatively on the level of total labor income. We argue that an underground sector, and the associated tax evasion, offer a good economic rationale for a regressive tax rate.

TRADE AND GROWTH IN A TWO-COUNTRY MODEL WITH HOME PRODUCTION AND UNEVEN TECHNOLOGICAL SPILLOVERS

We develop a two-country growth model distinguishing between a market sector producing services that can also be home produced and a market sector producing goods without home-produced substitutes. The former is a technologically ‘stagnant’ sector, while the latter is subject to learning-by-doing and technological spillovers. This distinction coincides in the model with the distinction between the sector producing non-tradables and the sector producing internationally tradable goods. We study how differentials in labor tax rates across countries influence the mix of tradable and non-tradable goods that characterizes the market output of each country, thus affecting their bilateral trade balance and growth rates.

Markov-perfect capital and labor taxes

This paper analyzes the Markov-perfect equilibrium of an economy were a benevolent government that lacks the ability to commit to future policy choices, uses taxes on capital and labor income to finance the provision of a public good. The main finding is that the government taxes capital and subsidizes labor so that only the dynamic inefficiency of future capital taxes remains. If agents’ preference for the public good is sufficiently high, then capital is confiscated. Setting bounds on taxes alleviates the dynamic inefficiency inherent in capital taxation, but some implementations carry a high welfare cost. Allowing for endogenous capital utilization makes the current capital tax distortionary and implies capital and labor tax rates that are relatively close to those measured for the U.S. economy.

Labour taxes and unemployment evidence from a panel unobserved component model

This paper estimates the impact of labour taxes on unemployment using a panel of yearly observations (1970–2005) for 16 OECD countries. Possible heterogeneity of the unemployment incidence of taxes is taken into account by grouping countries according to their wage-setting institutions. Panel data unit root and cointegration tests show that unemployment and labour tax rates are non-stationary but not cointegrated. As this finding may be induced by missing non-stationary variables, we set up a panel unobserved component model. Labour taxes are found to have a positive impact on unemployment only in countries characterised by strong but decentralised unions.

Dynamic Laffer Curves, Economic Growth and Public Capital

This paper adds to the literature on tax policy and economic growth by examining the effects of tax cuts on labor and capital within an endogenous growth model with public capital and elastic labor supply. The impact of tax cuts on growth rates and government revenues is shown to vary significantly based on the allocation of government budgets towards government consumption, transfers, and investment in public capital. In general, governments that allocate their revenues to public capital investment enjoy higher growth rates and larger revenue gains from tax cuts than governments that allocate to transfers or government consumption. In addition, cuts in capital tax rates are more likely to generate a positive present value of future revenues than similar cuts in labor tax rates. That is, capital taxes are more likely to have a dynamic Laffer curve. These results are explained at the microeconomic level through substitution, income and government outlay effects.

Do Political Incentives Matter for Tax Policies? Ideology, Opportunism and the Tax Structure

This paper investigates the importance of political ideology and opportunism in the choice of the tax structure. In particular, we examine the effects of cabinet ideology and elections on the distribution of the tax burden across factors of production and consumption for 21 OECD countries over the period 1970-2000 by employing four alternative cabinet ideology measures and by using the methodology of effective tax rates. There is evidence of both opportunistic and partisan effects on tax policies. More precisely, we find that left-wing governments rely more on capital relative to labor income taxation and that they tend to increase consumption taxes. Moreover, we find that income tax rates (but not consumption taxes) tend to be reduced in pre- electoral periods and that capital effective tax rates (defined broadly to include taxes on self- employed income) are reduced by more than effective labor tax rates.