Optimal Redistributive Tax Research Articles

Calculating Optimal Nonlinear Taxes Using Censored Income Data

Approximating the skill distribution via observed incomes is a central aspect of estimating the optimal redistributive taxes. Emerging economies may exhibit high minimum wage take-up rates, hiding some of the heterogeneity in skill distribution. This paper shows in the context of Turkey that accounting for the minimum wage policy when approximating skills considerably alters the estimates of optimal redistributive income taxes. Once the mass around the minimum wage is treated as left censored, the optimal tax scheme is significantly more redistributive in comparison to assuming no censoring. This is because allocating some of the mass around the minimum wage towards the lower parts of the skill distribution reduces the total skill stock and increases the standard deviation of the distribution. Consequently, the optimal marginal income taxes become higher, especially for the middle-skill group.

PUBLIC PROVISION OF PRIVATE GOODS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

In this paper, we characterize optimal redistributive taxes and subsidies on a discrete good which is available in different qualities. We assume that utility function of each consumer is such that his willingness-to-pay for quality increases with income. This separates the rich and the poor through the quality levels of the good actually purchased by them and allows the government to tax the rich and subsidize the poor. It is shown that the deadweight loss associated with the optimal policy may be zero. The notion of a consumer equilibrium introduced in the paper suggests a method for estimating the quality of a good as perceived by the consumers.

Tagging with leisure needs

We study optimal redistributive taxes when individuals differ in two characteristics - earning ability and leisure needs - assumed to be imperfectly correlated. Individuals have private information about their abilities but needs are observable. With two different levels of observable needs the population can be separated into two groups and needs may be used as a tag. We first assume that the social planner considers individuals should be compensated for their leisure needs and characterize the optimal redistributive policy, and the extent of compensation for needs, with tagging. We also consider an alternative social objective in which individuals are deemed responsible for their needs.

Optimal income taxation with Kalai wage bargaining and endogenous participation

This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive tax schedule in a search–matching framework where (voluntary) nonparticipation and (involuntary) unemployment are endogenous and wages are determined by proportional bargaining a la Kalai. The optimal employment tax rate is given by an inverse elasticity rule. This rule depends on the global response of the employment rate, which depends not only on the participation (labor supply) responses, but also on the vacancy posting (labor demand) responses and on the product of these two responses. For plausible values of the parameters, our matching environment induces much lower employment tax rates than the usual competitive model with endogenous participation only. However, optimal employment tax rates are larger (in absolute value) when a given level of the global elasticity of employment is more due to search frictions and less due to participation responses.

Optimal redistributive tax and education policies in general equilibrium

This paper studies optimal linear and non-linear income taxes and education subsidies in two-type models with endogenous human capital formation, endogenous labor supply, and endogenous wage rates. Assuming constant human capital elasticities, human capital investment should be efficient under optimal linear policies, whether general equilibrium effects are present or not. Hence, education subsidies should not be used for distributional reasons. Due to general equilibrium effects, optimal linear income taxes may even become negative. Optimal non-linear policies exploit general equilibrium effects for redistribution. The high-skilled type optimally has a negative marginal income tax rate and a positive marginal education subsidy. The low-skilled type optimally faces a positive marginal income tax rate and a marginal tax on education. Simulations demonstrate that general equilibrium effects have only a modest effect on optimal non-linear policies.

Optimal Redistributive Taxation with Both Labor Supply and Labor Demand Responses

This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive tax schedule in a matching unemployment framework with endogenous (voluntary) nonparticipation and (involuntary) unemployment. The optimal employment tax rate is given by an inverse employment elasticity rule. This rule depends on the global response of the employment rate, which depends not only on the participation (labor supply) responses, but also on the vacancy posting (labor demand) responses and on the product of these two types of responses. For plausible parameters, our matching environment induces much lower employment tax rates than the usual competitive participation model.

The effects of population aging on optimal redistributive taxes in an overlapping generations model

The impact of population aging on the steady-state solution to an Ordover and Phelps (J. Public Econ. 12:1–26, 1979) overlapping generations optimal nonlinear income tax problem with two types of worker and quasilinear-in-leisure preferences is investigated. A decrease in the rate of population growth, which leads to an aging population, increases the relative price of consumption per person in retirement, which tends to decrease optimal consumption for retirees of both skill types. Nevertheless, it is also shown that the optimal marginal income tax rates are independent of the rate of population growth. In addition, the steady-state interest rate unambiguously declines when the rate of population growth declines. Resulting adjustments in production plans have an ambiguous effect on the aggregate wage rate. This article identifies factors contributing to an increase in the aggregate wage when the population ages, namely normality of consumption in retirement, complementarity between capital and labor in production, and a large capital deepening effect relative to the increase in dependency owing to demographic change. Depending on the sign of this wage effect, ambiguities may arise in the direction of change in the optimal steady-state consumption and production plans. However, when the dependency effect is sufficiently strong, it is possible to sign the direction of change in all production and consumption plans. Moreover, regardless of the direction of change in optimal consumption plans, the absolute value of the changes in consumption plans are smaller for low-skilled workers than for high-skilled when utility is time-separable and preferences exhibit decreasing absolute risk aversion. Adopting, instead, a quasilinear-in-consumption specification of preferences sharpens the comparative statics of consumption allocations, but introduces ambiguity into the effect of the rate of population growth on the optimal marginal income tax rate.

Optimal Redistributive Taxation with Both Labor Supply and Labor Demand Responses

This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive tax schedule in a matching unemployment framework with endogenous (voluntary) nonparticipation and (involuntary) unemployment. The optimal employment tax rate is given by an inverse employment elasticity rule. This rule depends on the global response of the employment rate, which depends not only on the participation (labor supply) responses, but also on the vacancy posting (labor demand) responses and on the product of these two types of responses. For plausible parameters, our matching environment induces much lower employment tax rates than the usual competitive participation model.

Public goods provision, redistributive taxation, and wealth accumulation

This paper presents an extension of a static model of public goods provision with redistributional taxation, as described by Uler [ Journal of Public Economics 93 (3–4), pp. 440–453], as a dynamic model of wealth accumulation. Intertemporal consumption and saving behavior strongly affect the relation between redistributive taxation and charitable contribution. Indeed, the analyses presented herein reveal that more patience (i.e. higher saving) engenders a lower redistributional tax rate. However, the optimal redistributive tax rate is not zero because redistributive taxation improves the efficiency of providing public goods that are not improved by balanced growth. This paper fills the gap separating static analysis and dynamic analysis, and generalizes the results presented by static analysis.

Optimal Redistributive Tax and Education Policies in General Equilibrium

Optimal Redistributive Tax and Education Policies in General Equilibrium

Markets as Beneficial Constraints on the Government

We study the role of anonymous markets in which trades cannot be monitored by the government. We adopt a Mirrlees approach to analyze economies in which agents have private information and a benevolent government controls optimal redistributive tax policy. While unrestricted access to anonymous markets reduces the set of policy instruments available to the government, it also limits the scope of inefficient redistributive policies when the government lacks commitment. Indeed, the restrictions that anonymous markets impose on the optimal fiscal policy, especially on capital taxation and the history-dependence of income taxation, can have positive welfare effects in this case.

Tagging and Redistributive Taxation

We study optimal redistributive taxes when the population can be disaggregated into tagged groups. Under reasonable circumstances, the tax system will be more redistributive in the tagged group with the higher proportion of high-ability persons. We extend the analysis to the case where the tag reflects differences in resources required to achieve a given level of utility. The compensation given for needs depends on whether the income tax structure is differentiated by needs groups.

Markets as beneficial constraints on the government

We study the role of anonymous markets in which trades cannot be monitored by the government. We adopt a Mirrlees approach to analyze economies in which agents have private information and a benevolent government controls optimal redistributive tax policy. While unrestricted access to anonymous markets reduces the set of policy instruments available to the government, it also limits the scope of inefficient redistributive policies when the government lacks commitment. Indeed, the restrictions that anonymous markets impose on the optimal fiscal policy, especially on capital taxation and the history-dependence of income taxation, can have positive welfare effects in this case.

Inequality and Optimal Redistributive Tax and Transfer Policies

This article argues that the validity of the increasingly fashionable policy advice—maximizing neutrality in taxation and addressing the distributive objective primarily through expenditure policy—is questionablebecause it ignores the revenue-raising aspect of progressive taxation. On the basis of a simple model in which the tax revenue is used exclusively to finance (perfectly) targeted transfers to the poor, the article shows that not only would it be optimal to finance the targeted transfers with progressive taxation, but the optimal progressivity increases unambiguously with growing income inequality. This conclusion holds up under different assumptions about the efficiency cost of taxation and society’s aversion to inequality.

Redistributive Tax and Growth in a Model with Discrete Occupational Choice

An optimal redistributive tax‐subsidy formula is derived for a growth model where income inequality is endogenously driven by an adult's choice of occupation between work and management. Investment in human capital is the engine of growth. The world's stock of exploitable knowledge as well as the economy's average human capital determine the potential rate of return from investment in human capital in an economy. How much available knowledge would be exploited in the economy depends on the proportion of innovators in our model. A redistributive tax reform impacts growth as well as income inequality via its influence over the occupational choice. The optimal redistributive tax rate is path‐dependent in the sense that it depends on the initial wealth distribution. The normative implication of the model is that the optimal capital income tax rate could very well be positive if the initial wealth inequality exceeds a threshold. The optimal capital income tax rate depends inversely on the initial wealth inequality.

Inequality and Optimal Redistributive Tax and Transfer Policies

This paper explores the revenue-raising aspect of progressive taxation and derives, on the basis of a simple model, the optimal degree of tax progressivity where the tax revenue is used exclusively to finance (perfectly) targeted transfers to the poor. The paper shows that not only would it be optimal to finance the targeted transfers with progressive taxation, but that the optimal progressivity increases unambiguously with growing income inequality. This conclusion holds up under different assumptions about the efficiency cost of taxation and society’s aversion to inequality.

Inequality and Optimal Redistributive Tax and Transfer Policies

This paper explores the revenue-raising aspect of progressive taxation and derives, on the basis of a simple model, the optimal degree of tax progressivity where the tax revenue is used exclusively to finance (perfectly) targeted transfers to the poor. The paper shows that not only would it be optimal to finance the targeted transfers with progressive taxation, but that the optimal progressivity increases unambiguously with growing income inequality. This conclusion holds up under different assumptions about the efficiency cost of taxation and society’s aversion to inequality.

Redistributive taxation as social insurance

The modern literature on nonlinear optimal taxation treats differences in income as being due to unobserved differences in ability. A striking result of this assumption is that high income agents should face a zero marginal tax rate. In this paper I assume that differences in observed income are due to exogenous differences in luck. Hence the optimal redistributive tax involves trading off the benefits due to ‘social insurance’ with the costs due to reduced incentives. I derive the optimal forms for linear and nonlinear taxes, and compute some algebraic and numeric examples. Typically high income individuals will face quite high marginal tax rates.