Redistributive Taxation under Ethical Behaviour*

We consider the implications of ethical behaviour on the effect of a redistributive tax‐transfer system. In choosing their labour supplies, individuals take into account whether their tax liabilities correspond to what they view as ethically acceptable. If tax liabilities are viewed as ethically acceptable, a taxpayer behaves ethically, does not distort her behaviour, and chooses to work as if she were not taxed. On the other hand, if ethical behaviour results in tax liabilities that exceed those that are ethically acceptable, she behaves egoistically (partially or fully), distorts her behaviour, and chooses her labour supply taking into account the income tax. We establish taxpayers' equilibrium behaviour and obtain that labour supply is less elastic when taxpayers may behave ethically than when they act egoistically. We characterise and compare the egoistic voting equilibrium linear tax schedules under potentially ethical and egoistic behaviour. We also compare our results to those obtained under altruism, an alternative benchmark.     

Optimal Nonlinear Redistributive Taxation and Public Good Provision in an Economy with Veblen Effects

This paper deals with the consequences of the assumption of negatively interdependent preferences for the shape of the optimal nonlinear income tax and the efficient level of public good provision in a setting where the agents' market ability is private information. The analysis points out that the terms added in the tax formulas due to the presence of Veblen effects might justify a reduction in the optimal marginal tax rates faced by the different individuals. Also, the desirability of negative marginal tax rates cannot be ruled out. With respect to the issue of the optimal level of public good provision, I derive a modified Samuelson rule and highlight the fact that the Veblen‐based part of the formula might require to distort downwards the efficient level of public good provision.     

Optimal Redistributive Income Taxation and Efficiency Wages*

In this paper, we integrate efficiency wage setting with the theory of optimal redistributive income taxation. In doing so, we use a model with two skill types, where efficiency wage setting characterizes the labor market faced by the low‐skilled, whereas the high‐skilled face a conventional, competitive labor market. We show that the marginal income tax implemented for the high‐skilled is negative under plausible assumptions. The marginal income tax facing the low‐skilled can be either positive or negative, in general. An increase in unemployment benefits contributes to a relaxation of the binding self‐selection constraint, which makes this instrument particularly useful from the perspective of redistribution.     

Optimal Redistributive Taxation in a Search Equilibrium Model

This paper characterizes optimal non-linear income taxation in an economy with a continuum of unobservable productivity levels and endogenous involuntary unemployment due to frictions in the labour markets. Redistributive taxation distorts labour demand and wages. Compared to their efficient values, gross wages, unemployment, and participation are lower. Average tax rates are increasing. Marginal tax rates are positive, even at the top. Finally, numerical simulations suggest that redistribution is much more important in our setting than in a comparable Mirrlees-type setting.     

Education Policies and Taxation without Commitment

We study the implications of limited commitment on education and tax policies set by benevolent governments. Consistent with real‐world practices, a government can decide to subsidize different levels of education at different rates. A lack of commitment, however, affects the optimal structure of education subsidies. The direction of the effect depends on how labor taxes are designed. With linear labor tax rates and a transfer for redistribution, subsidies become more progressive. By contrast, if the government is only constrained by informational asymmetries when designing taxes, subsidies become more regressive.     

The Impact of Inflation and Taxation on Tenure Choice and the Redistributive Effects of Home-Mortgage Interest Rate ReguIation*

Judy Yates (1981) notes the regressive redistributive impact of home-mortgage interest rate regulation and offers some explanations. This paper provides an alternative explanation of Yates' observations in terms of the interaction of inflation with the current tax system in Australia. A model of tenure choice in the context of inflation and taxation is developed. In explaining this phenomenon, the model also establishes the regressive nature of the tax subsidy to owner-occupation. Home-mortgage interest rate regulation is then introduced. This reinforces the redistributive bias in the housing finance market. The model is used finally to predict the impact of deregulation. It is concluded that deregulation by itself can only remove redistributive bias resulting from regulated mortgage interest rates. Reform of the tax system is required to eliminate the regressive redistributive effects of the tax subsidy to owner-occupation .     

Mobility and Redistributive Politics

There is widespread concern that greater mobility of individuals can undermine any attempt to redistribute income at the local level. In this paper we derive the equilibrium level of redistribution when both the rich and the poor are imperfectly mobile and when each jurisdiction chooses its redistributive policy by majority voting. This leads to a fundamental interaction whereby the policy choices of jurisdictions determine whom they attract and where whom they attract determines their policy choices. Our main findings are twofold. First, we show that greater mobility of the poor can increase the equilibrium amount of redistribution. Second, we find that some jurisdictions can be in equilibrium on the "wrong" side of their Laffer curve. The reason is that the poor are in a majority in these jurisdictions and they are opposed to a potentially Pareto-improving tax reduction because it would attract the rich and shift the majority. The analysis also reveals how the interplay between policy choices and membership leads to multiple equilibria.     

公共财政与税费制度改革

我国现行行政收费存在诸多问题，已给经济和社会发展带来了严重影响。从公共财政角度分析税费制度改革的理论依据、必要性及相关实施措施，加快推进税费制度改革步伐，对于规范公共财政收入形式，健全公共财政体系，促进经济和社会可持续发展具有十分重要的意义。     

依法治税和纳税服务——基于国家税收和公共税收的视角

依法治税和纳税服务是现阶段税收的两大任务。对两者的认识,不能孤立地或对立地看,而是要在社会主义市场经济下的税收应是国家税收和公共税收的统一的视角下加以把握。从这一认识出发,我们就能真正做到坚持依法治税,优化纳税服务,服务科学发展,就能探索出一条中国特色社会主义市场经济条件下的纳税服务新路。     

Schumpeterian Growth with Productive Public Spending and Distortionary Taxation

Schumpeterian growth theory eliminates the scale effect by positing a process of development of new product lines that fragments the aggregate market in submarkets whose size does not increase with population or the size of the workforce. This entails the sterilization of the growth effects of selected fiscal variables. This insight is applied to shed new light on the role of distortionary taxes on consumption, household labor and assets income, corporate income, and of productive public spending. The framework allows the identification of which of these fiscal variables have permanent (steady‐state) growth effects, and which ones have only transitory effects. It also allows the transitional dynamics to be solved analytically and thus the analysis of the welfare effects of revenue‐neutral changes in tax structure. It is found that replacing taxes that distort labor supply with taxes that distort saving/investment choices raises welfare, and the intuition behind this surprising result is discussed.     

财税监督机制的设计与创新

财税监督弱化、制度建设落后，财税监督体系不健全、方式不科学，财税监督渠道不畅通、民主意识淡薄，一直是我国财政理论和实践中极易被忽视的问题。它不仅造成财政资金使用效益低、损失浪费巨大，也容易产生腐败或其他社会问题。因此，如何切实加强新时期财税监督的理论和对策研究，是社会主义市场经济条件下财政理论建设的一项重要内容。     

Constitutional Constraints and Redistributive Activities

This paper shows that non-productive activities aimed at influencing the distribution of income might increase when constitutional constraints against redistribution are imposed or strengthened. By facilitating redistribution, on the other hand, influence activities could be limited, and the economic performance improved. We argue that these effects could be important in countries with poorly developed democratic institutions, and that research in constitutional economics needs to be more aware of perverse effects of this kind.     

Budget Deficits and Redistributive Politics

This paper proposes a new view of the forces in the political process thatcause governments to accumulate debt. The analysis builds on a model of redistributive politics that, contrary to median voter models, does not restrict the set of policies that politicians can propose. I show that deficits occur even in an environment where voters (and periods) are homogeneous. This is an environment where previous political theories of debt would predict budget balance. In the model deficits are a way for candidates to better target promises to voters and are therefore used as tools of redistributive politics. The main contribution of the analysis is to show that the same forces that push candidates to redistribute resources across voters to pursue political advantage are forces that generate budget deficits.     

税改后农村公益事业的发展

文章论述了农业税取消后,农民负担减轻但农村公益事业举步维艰的现状,同时也阐述了农村基层财政因税改而面临的资金等方面的困难,并在此基础上提出了解决的对策和措施。     

Redistributive policy,inequality and growth

Does redistribution increase inequality? Is inequality harmful for growth? Both questions have recently been addressed in a number of single-tax models. In this paper, I examine the relationship between policy, growth and inequality when income and inherited wealth can be taxed at different rates. In the model, parents accumulate human capital and a return-bearing, storable good in order to increase the quality of their children. Inequality arises because the learning ability of children is stochastic. Redistributive labor income taxation has a negative impact on short- and long-run growth while taxation of inherited stocks increases growth. Effects of both taxes on income inequality are ambiguous. A switch from income to inheritance taxation may increase average utility of all generations involved. I calculate a structure-induced equilibrium of the political process by means of a stochastic simulation of the model. In the short run initial wealth-inequality can stimulate growth, while initial inequality of the endowment with human capital is harmful for growth.     

Optimal Tax-Transfer Systems and Redistributive Policy

In this paper we develop "optimal yardsticks" to gauge the effectiveness of given tax and benefit policies in reducing inequality. We show that the conjunction of the optimal tax and optimal benefits policies constitutes the optimal tax-and-benefit policy, given the tax and benefit budget sizes. A decomposition formula enables trends in the inequality impact of taxes and benefits to be explained in terms of changing policy effectivess (targeting) and budget size effects. The analysis incorporates a distributional judgement parameter, for sensitivity analysis, and concludes with an examination of the Finnish case for the period 1971–1990.
JEL Classification : D 63     

User Charges as Redistributive Devices

In this model, a mix of public and private provision of private goods arises naturally in the economy. We characterize the social optimum in the presence of a linear tax/public expenditure system and show how a user charge can be welfare- or Pareto-improving, when the users are the poor. The charge discourages the rich from opting into the public program and allows the policymaker to restructure the tax/expenditure system in a way that is beneficial for the poor. If the ensuing welfare gain is large enough to outweigh the loss for the remaining users, a charge is desirable.     

Gambling Taxation: Public Equity in the Gambling Business

Government's intrinsic role in sustaining a viable gambling industry, and its significant revenue stake in industry profitability, can make the public effectively shareholders in the industry. An important social cost of gambling is the potential for corruption of democratic processes through close industry and government links. Government can increase gambling revenues by expanding the tax base, rather than by raising tax rates. Gambling tax rates have fallen in recent decades, while revenues have increased dramatically. This paper analyses the forces encouraging governments to give excessive priority to protecting gambling revenues. It finds gambling taxation is regressive, and increasingly so as access widens. 'Children, madmen and fools' are significant to the market. The transition to a goods and services tax, along with the recent inquiry by the Productivity Commission into gambling, provides an opportunity for gambling policy to be made in a coherent social and economic framework, rather than as ad hoc and short-term solutions to State governments' revenue problems. Such an outcome rests on the Commonwealth government playing a leadership role.     

Public Investment and Income Taxation: Redistribution vs. Productive Performance

This paper deals with government investment in a static two-type self-selection model of optimum income taxation. It is shown that the second-best investment rule is consistent with efficient production, provided that public investment has no influence on relative factor prices. Otherwise, however, redistributive income taxation implies that optimal investment expenditures exceed (or fall below) the efficient level as long as they raise (or decrease) the wage rate of the unskilled individuals relative to the wage rate of the skilled individuals.     

Optimal Income Taxation and Public Good Provision with Endogenous Interest Groups

This paper studies public goods provision when agents differ in earning abilities as well as preferences. Heterogeneity in skills makes redistribution desirable and generates an equity-efficiency trade-off. If tax revenues are devoted to a public good, this trade-off is affected in such a way that income transfers are less desirable. High-skilled individuals thus have an incentive to exaggerate their preferences for public goods. Analogously, low-skilled individuals lobby against public good provision. A requirement of collective incentive compatibility eliminates these biases. It implies that income transfers are increased whenever a public good is provided and are decreased otherwise.