Behavioral Interventions to Increase Tax‐Time Saving: Evidence from a National Randomized Trial

We provide new large‐scale experimental evidence on policies that aim to boost household saving out of income tax refunds. Households that filed income tax returns with an online tax preparer and chose to receive their refund electronically were randomized into eight treatment groups, which received different combinations of motivational saving prompts and suggested shares of the refund to save—25% and 75%—and a control group, which received neither. In treatment conditions where they were presented, motivational prompts focused on various savings goals: general, retirement, or emergency. Analysis reveals that higher suggested that allocations generated increased allocations of the refund to savings but that prompts for different reasons to save did not. These interventions, which draw on lessons from behavioral economics, represent potentially low‐cost, scalable tools for policy makers interested in helping low‐ and moderate‐income households build savings.     

Encouraging Tax‐Time Savings with a Low‐Touch,Large‐Scale Intervention: Evidence from the Refund to Savings Experiment

Low‐ and moderate‐income households often struggle to save, but the annual tax refund represents a prime opportunity for these households to save toward their financial goals or build their emergency savings. This paper presents the results of a randomized, controlled experiment embedded in a free tax‐preparation product offered in 2013 to low‐ and moderate‐income households. The experiment involved approximately 470,000 filers and assessed the impact of behavioral interventions on their savings behaviors. The results show that filers exposed to the treatments, which involved the established behavioral‐economics techniques of anchoring, choice architecture, and persuasive messaging, were more likely than a control group to save their tax refund and, on average, saved more of the refund. A follow‐up survey of these tax filers found that the treatments were associated with saving more of the tax refund six months after filing. The findings also show that anchors encouraging filers to deposit certain amounts are more effective than persuasive messaging emphasizing savings.     

我国省际劳动、资本、消费有效税率的估算与比较

国际上衡量实际税收负担的一般方法为平均有效税率,采用这一国际通行方法,核算了1998－2012年我国各省级劳动、资本收入以及消费支出的平均有效税率,以反映这三种要素的真实负担情况,并将它与世界其它国家进行了比较研究。结果表明：各省劳动收入有效税率则呈上升态势,资本有效税率呈先下降再上升趋势,消费有效税率呈现不规则上升趋势;资本收入有效税率大大高于劳动收入和消费支出的有效税率;各省劳动和消费的有效税率还处于世界平均偏下水平,而资本有效税率处于世界平均偏上水平;地区比较来看,东部地区的劳动、资本、消费有效税率最大,西部次之,中部最低。表明西部地区的税负水平偏高,应该探索能够降低西部地区税负的有效途径,均衡地区之间的税收负担。     

PUBLIC CAPITAL,TAXATION AND ENDOGENOUS GROWTH IN A FINITE HORIZONS MODEL

This paper presents development of an endogenously growing finite horizons model with public capital, and investigates macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and a change in life expectancy. Specifically regarding novel results, a growth‐maximizing income tax rate exists that is less than the elasticity of public capital to output. In addition, in the model with income tax financing, there might exist an inverted‐U‐shaped relationship between life expectancy and growth, which is consistent with some empirical evidence. In this paper, we elucidate the interaction among public capital accumulation, taxes, growth, welfare and life expectancy.     

The Role of Refund Expectations in Savings: Evidence from Volunteer Income Tax Preparation Programs in the United States

Millions of households in the United States receive federal income tax refunds annually, many for substantial amounts. Consumers can use the proceeds of income tax refunds for spending and saving, but tests of prior programs to encourage savings show low take‐up rates. This field study shows that the majority of tax filers make no estimate of their refund amount in advance, but that consumers who are able to estimate their refund in advance of completing their tax returns tend to be reasonably accurate in their estimates. Moreover, taxpayers who estimate their refunds before filing their taxes are more likely to save their refunds than those who do not. These results highlight the importance of expectations and planning with respect to savings decisions.     

Wie sollte das Steuersystem in Deutschland reformiert werden?

Some authors focus on the fact that Germany shows one of the highest tax burdens among the OECD countries. Based on their analysis, they suggest approaches to reduce the tax burden in particular for lower and medium incomes. These tax reliefs are possible, and would not compromise new public investment. But decreases in personal income tax rates mainly relieve higher income earners and are accompanied by high tax losses if the top tax rates are not increased. Alternatives are relief for social contributions or VAT. Other researchers do not look at the tax burden this way: as the income tax burden in Germany is not high from a historical perspective or by international standards, there is no case for massive tax cuts, as this would jeopardise the government’s ability to act and fail to correct past shifts of the tax burden at the expense of households with low incomes. Any tax cuts should be targeted at the bottom half of the income distribution without creating any revenue shortfalls. Instead, the government would be well advised to increase its efforts to overcome the public investment backlog and ensure a well functioning civil service. Furthermore, sustainability oriented tax reforms should focus on a shift of the tax burden from taxes on labour towards environmental and wealth based taxes.     

Effects of a Tax‐Time Savings Intervention on Use of Alternative Financial Services among Lower‐Income Households

Alternative financial services (AFS) such as check cashing and payday loans may help unbanked households meet transaction and credit needs, yet often at a very high price. Saving tax refunds can help low‐ and moderate‐income (LMI) households build emergency savings as a way to reduce dependence on AFS and cope effectively with irregular cash flows and financial shocks. This study examined the impact on AFS use of message‐based interventions encouraging LMI households to save their refunds when they electronically filed their federal income tax returns. We found that 3 out of 18 interventions resulted in statistically significant reductions in credit‐related AFS use with small effect sizes. None of the interventions resulted in reduced transaction‐related AFS use. Other factors—especially prior AFS use and financial shocks—were strong predictors of AFS. Financially vulnerable households may need additional opportunities and protections to reduce dependence on AFS.     

Insights on Tax Evasion Using a Monetary Circuit Model

The paper analyses the impact of tax evasion on government budgets, using a monetary circuit model. It is possible to show that, under specific parameter values, evading taxes on profit becomes an attractive proposition when government policies tax capital and employment in different ways and on different timescales. Without adequate tax enforcement, government is reduced to acting as a financial backer for companies. Furthermore, a lower tax rate on labour income enabling money to flow from households to companies through private consumption reduces incentives for tax evasion. These results hold true even if the government decides to implement a balanced budget fiscal policy.     

我国个人所得税累进性的实证分析:1995-2006

税收累进性是评价税制公平性的重要标准之一。在对税收累进性测量方法梳理和述评的基础上,实证分析了1995-2006年间我国个人所得税的累进性,得到以下结论:除低收入户、中等偏下户和最高收入户某些年份出现累退情况外,其余收入阶层都是累进的:个人所得税制是累进的,且除2001-2002年外,累进性变动轨迹是唯一的。不过,总体累进性呈下降趋势。随后,进一步进行成因分析,并提出相应的政策建议。     

Abschaffung der Abgeltungsteuer — gerechter und steuersystematisch einheitlicher?

There is a rising political discussion in Germany around abolishing the final withholding tax on capital income. The German tax reforms that introduced this tax lowered tax rates, in particular on interest income. According to some authors, the growing inequality of income and property is a strong argument for the higher taxation of capital income. However, other authors argue that the neutrality aspects concerning private investment are inadequate. An abolishment of the final withholding tax would not solve these problems and, moreover, would turn back the achieved improvements. Therefore, the German Council of Economic Experts suggests complementing the previous reforms by introducing an allowance for corporate equity.     

政府公共文化支出对家庭文化消费的影响研究——基于中国家庭追踪调查的分析

政府在促进文化消费中发挥重要作用。基于中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)2014年和2016年的家庭经济数据,利用Tobit模型实证分析了政府公共文化支出对家庭文化消费的影响,以及该影响在城镇和农村家庭、不同收入水平家庭中表现出的异质性。研究表明:政府公共文化支出增加有助于提高家庭文娱支出占比,且在缩尾处理和更换关键变量的稳健性检验中,核心结论仍然成立;但是,政府公共文化支出对文化消费的挤入效应主要局限于城镇家庭及中低收入家庭,对农村家庭、低收入和中高收入家庭的刺激作用不显著。应继续扩大文化事业财政支出规模,优化公共文化服务资源配置,重点扶持农村文化娱乐消费,同时提高文化产品和服务供给质量。     

Cross-border pollution,public pollution abatement and capital tax competition

We analyze the case where governments have to use income tax revenue to finance public pollution abatement and relate the results to the existing literature on capital tax competition. We show that the impact of public pollution abatement on Nash taxes on mobile factor income is non-trivial and the standard results from the tax competition literature can be reversed. When the two countries are identical, the Nash equilibrium capital income taxes converge to the tax on immobile factors income as the degree of cross-border pollution converges to one. When countries are asymmetric and pollution is local the presence of public pollution abatement lowers the capital tax for the capital exporting country, while the impact on the capital tax of the capital importing country is ambiguous.     

Government Spending Composition in an Endogenous Growth Model with Congestion

We build an endogenous growth model in which government expenditure is divided into public consumption and investment in public capital, and where both components suffer from some degree of congestion. We demonstrate that the socially optimal growth rate is negatively related to the degree of congestion. As regards the optimal share of government spending on infrastructure, we prove that an increase in congestion leads to a decrease in this share and that the optimal share of government spending on output can increase or decrease with congestion. In addition, we compare the social planner optimum with the second‐best outcome and show that, in this second case, welfare is lower. In this framework, we derive a necessary condition, which must hold in the second‐best equilibrium, involving the income tax rate and the share of government spending on public investment.     

Keeping Up With the Joneses: Analyzing the Effect of Income Inequality on Consumer Borrowing

Household debt relative to disposable income increased from 60% in 1980 to 104% at the end of 2003. ‘Buying on credit’ has become so popular that an increasing number of firms generate more profit from financing than from selling their products. In this paper, we show that rising income inequality has substantially contributed to increased consumer borrowing. Income inequality affects all components of total household debt, but the impact is strongest on non-revolving debt (installment loans), which is used to finance the purchase of consumer durables. We argue and provide evidence that the income inequality effect on consumer borrowing is a result of conspicuous consumption. Rising income inequality has forced households with smaller income gains to use debt to keep up their consumption level relative to households with larger income gains.JEL Classification: D12, G29, J31, M30     

Distributive Policies and Economic Growth: An Optimal Taxation Approach

In an infinite‐horizon endogenous growth model a capital income cum investment subsidy tax is considered to investigate if distribution of income towards the non‐accumulated factor of production (labour) retards growth and if capital income taxes are bad instruments to finance investment subsidies. The paper identifies conditions under which the tax scheme is better for growth than other distorting tax schemes. In the model a pro‐labour government acts growth maximizing and distributing income towards labour raises growth. A pro‐capital government's preferred policy is not growth maximizing under the tax scheme, but may generate higher growth than its optimal policy under other tax schemes.     

Sraffian general equilibrium

If the Sraffa system of equations is augmented by consumption demand equations of households and investment demand equations of industries the result is a complete system of general equilibrium having a unique positive solution for the relative prices, absolute levels of industrial outputs, the rates of growth and profit, the real wage rate, and the shares of ownership of the capital stock. The model has been generalized to include the government sector and determine the tax rate and public expenditure. Constructive algorithms for the computation of the general equilibrium have been presented. Empirical evidence from cross‐country sources has been gathered in support of a central inference of the model viz. the long‐run convergence of industrial growth rates and rates of profit towards uniformity.     

Are Two Incomes Needed to Prosper Today? Evidence from the 1960s to the 1990s

Consumer Expenditure Survey data from 1960 to 1996 are used to examine trends in real consumption, real after‐tax income, market work time, and real after‐tax wages for single‐earner and dual‐earner households. Over the entire time period, most households experienced substantial improvements in measures of their prosperity. However, economic progress was considerably reduced when the comparison was from 1972 to 1996. Also, wage changes dominated changes in market work time over all time periods.     

Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model with Productive Government Spending

The goal of this paper is to analyse the effects of fiscal policy upon the long-run balanced growth rate in an endogenous growth model in which sustained per capita growth is the result of productive government spending. Assuming that labour is supplied inelastically, it is shown that increases in non-productive government spending, i.e. public consumption or lump-sum transfers, always reduce the balanced growth rate, whereas there exists a growth-maximizing investment subsidy rate and income tax rate. Moreover, a rise in a tax on consumption increases economic growth if it raises public investment. If labour supply is elastic the elasticity of labour supply crucially determines the growth-maximizing income tax rate and an increase in the tax on consumption may raise or lower economic growth.     

从有效需求看政府在提高居民购房能力中的作用

随着我国住房制度改革的推进,我国住房市场出现了城镇中等收入居民有强烈的购房欲望,然而又因为收入偏低而没有实际支付能力,即有效需求不足的局面。凯恩斯的消费函数具有普遍意义,就当前来说,居民对住房的消费尚属于其引致消费的一部分,政府应该通过增加中等收入居民的可支配收入来提高他们对住房的消费能力。而可支配收入的提高又有赖于税收杠杆,政府对国内居民发行公债和参与保险可以增加政府的转移支付能力,从而提高中等收入居民的可支配收入。     

收入不平等与最优个人所得税-转移支付再分配系统

本文构建了个人所得税、转移支付以及个人所得税-转移支付系统对于居民收入不平等的实际、最优和最大效应指标。运用中国省份数据分析,发现中国个人所得税正在加速恶化居民收入不平等,并且在对收入不平等的影响中发挥主要作用;转移支付对收入不平等有一定的抑制作用,但力量较弱,而且离最优指标"要求"越来越远;个人所得税-转移支付系统加剧了收入不平等,并且加剧程度越来越严重,最后提出了相应的政策建议。