Efficient Tax Competition with Factor Mobility and Trade: A Note

This note shows that residence- and source-based taxes on capital income are not sufficient to sustain an efficient Nash equilibrium when several goods are internationally traded, apart from two special cases. With several traded commodities, domestic fiscal policies affect foreign welfare not only through changes in the world interest rate but also through changes in the equilibrium relative prices of traded commodities. In order to guarantee the existence of an efficient Nash equilibrium in the general case, additional tax instruments are required. In particular, destination-based taxes on traded commodities are needed to enable the government to control the relative commodity prices faced by domestic consumers. In addition, in order to shield domestic producers from changes in world prices, the government must levy either origin-based commodity taxes or taxes on the immobile factors.     

From Destination- to Origin-Based Consumption Taxation: A Dynamic CGE Analysis

A switch from the current destination-based value-added taxation to an origin-based consumption tax will not be neutral in a world economy with international capital mobility and overlapping generations. This paper evaluates the macroeconomic and welfare effects of such a multilateral reform in a two-region, intertemporal general equilibrium model. The analysis isolates and quantifies income effects due to changes in generations' tax burdens, factor price repercussions and initial asset price adjustments, as well as efficiency effects that arise from endogenous labor supply and short run savings responses in a numerical simulation exercise.     

The Marginal Cost of Funds and the Shadow Prices of Public Sector Inputs and Outputs

Existing studies on the marginal cost of funds (MCF) do not incorporate the public sector inputs explicitly. Incorporating labor and capital as public sector inputs raises questions concerning the definition and the usage of the MCF, and its relation to public sector shadow prices. This paper finds that the MCF should be defined based on the excess revenue rather than the gross revenue; that general equilibrium effects on individuals' net income and government's inframarginal expenditures should be incorporated; and that the MCF measures an element in the shadow price that is solely attributable to the marginal financing, justifying the role of the MCF in cost-benefit analysis and tax reform.     

Commodity Prices and the Business Cycle in Latin America: Living and Dying by Commodities?

We analyze the dynamic interactions between commodity prices and output growth of the seven biggest Latin American exporters: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Using a novel definition of Markov-switching impulse response functions, we find that the response of each country's output growth to commodity price shocks is time dependent, size dependent, and sign dependent. The major evidence of asymmetries in output growth responses occurs when commodity price shocks lead to regime shifts. Thus, we conclude that the design of optimal countercyclical stabilization policies should consider that the reactions of economic activity vary considerably across business cycle regimes.     

Barriers to Trade and Imperfect Competition: The Choice of Commodity Tax Base

Recent work has started to analyze the choice of international commodity tax base under conditions of imperfect competition. This paper focuses on the effects of changing levels of trade barriers in a model where firms engage in duopoly competition and governments set commodity taxes non-cooperatively. It is shown that the consumption base (destination principle) dominates the production base (origin principle) when trade costs are high, but the ranking of the two tax bases is reversed for low levels of trade costs. We conclude that the case for origin-based commodity taxes becomes stronger when barriers to trade fall.     

超越再分配调节:对税收促进共同富裕作用的全景认识及政策建议

税收是影响共同富裕的重要因素,但目前社会各界对税收与共同富裕之间的关系的认识,更多局限于通过收入转移实现再分配进而缩小贫富差距方面。基于理论逻辑与政策实践相映照、历史经验与发展进路相结合的分析表明,税收对共同富裕的影响是超越再分配调节的,理应在广阔的时代视阈下形成对税收促进共同富裕作用的全景认识。进入后小康时代,税收促进共同富裕的作用定位是推动经济高质量发展、优化社会分配结构、保障公共服务供给、促进绿色转型发展、缓解空间发展不平衡、助推民主法治建设。对照这六大作用定位的基本要求,目前税收在促进共同富裕方面还存在一些薄弱环节与不完善之处。因此,今后要以实现共同富裕为目标导向,找准公平与效率的结合点,进一步深化税制改革、完善现代税制,使税收在扎实推动共同富裕进程中更好地发挥作用。     

Efficiency in Turkish banking: post-restructuring evidence

Turkish banking sector went through a significant restructuring process in the aftermath of the country's financial crisis of 2000–2001. In this paper, we analyze the evolution of banking performance using a novel approach due to Ray [(2007). “Shadow Profit Maximization and a Measure of Overall Inefficiency.” Journal of Productivity Analysis 27, 231–236]. We derive ‘shadow unrealized profit scores’ as well as ‘shadow input–output prices’ for each year and bank in the sector from 2002 to 2011. We argue these scores operationalize the Hicksian concept of ‘monopolistic quiet life’. We provide some evidence the sector came closer to the ‘zero profit condition’ as well as displaying a closer approximation to the ‘law of one price’ over time. We show the variability of these ‘shadow prices’ essentially coincides with that of corresponding actual prices. We utilize shadow price information to show that business models and competitive choices of banks differ across ownership types with foreign banks competing on the broadest front compared to state-owned and privately owned Turkish banks.     

Tax Principles,Product Differentiation and the Nature of Competition

We analyze the choice between the origin and destination principles of taxation when there is product differentiation and Bertrand competition. If taxes are redistributed to consumers and demand is linear the origin principle dominates the destination principle whatever the degree of product differentiation and extent of economic integration. With nonlinear demand the origin principle dominates if there is sufficient economic integration. When the social value assigned to tax revenue is higher than the private value, the destination principle dominates for intermediate values of product differentiation and economic integration. The same results are also shown to hold with Cournot competition. JEL Code: F12, H20     

商品期货价格期限结构隐含交易策略信息的实证研究

本文采用静态和滚动主成分分析的方法对最具代表性的9个品种商品期货价格期限结构进行了分析,得出我国商品期货价格期限结构变动的3个主要特征:曲线的平移、斜率的变化以及曲率的变化。在揭示不同变动方式的信息价值的基础上,本文提出多头、多头或者空头、多空平衡3种交易策略,并通过构建两个商品组合与基准持有策略收益进行了比较分析。结果表明,基于商品期货价格期限结构的隐含信息而构建的交易策略收益显著超过基准持有策略的收益。这对于交易者制定正确的交易策略具有重要的意义。     

Redistributive effects of the shift from personal income taxes to indirect taxes: Belgium 1988–93

Between 1988 and 1993, the Belgian personal income tax system and the indirect tax system were reformed to a considerable extent. We use microsimulation models to investigate the impact of the reform on the liability progression and the redistributive effect of the combined tax system. The redistributive effect of personal income taxes decreased, notwithstanding an increase in liability progression. For indirect taxes, both the liability regressivity and the reverse redistributive effect have been enhanced. We use recently developed statistical tests to gauge the significance of the observed changes.     

Shadow-Pricing Interpretation of the Pigovian Rule for the Optimal Provision of Public Goods: A Note

The Pigovian rule for the optimal public goods provision with distortionary taxation is given a new interpretation. It relates the Pigovian rule to project evaluation rules in terms of shadow prices. Our formula for the Pigovian rule is compared with that given by existing literature for cases in which commodity taxes are set optimally to articulate the implications of their results. This approach also renders a clear insight on the nature of resource allocation and income redistribution effect involved in the public goods provision in a heterogeneous-consumers economy.     

结合逃税的最优税收理论研究评述

最优税收理论主要研究税制的最优设计问题,而逃税理论主要致力于政府的最优执行问题,最近出现了将这两种理论结合起来的研究趋势。结合逃税的最优税收理论,包括最优所得税和最优商品税等内容,研究结果表明:结合逃税的最优税收理论并不能得出比标准最优税收理论更为明确的政策结论,其还有待于进一步的研究和发展。     

经济增长、国际资源品价格与输入性通货膨胀——基于扩展的新凯恩斯菲利普斯曲线的实证分析

在新凯恩斯菲利普斯曲线模型中引入国际资源品价格变量、货币供应量、人民币名义汇率,扩展新凯恩斯菲利普斯曲线模型,并利用SVAR模型进行实证检验,结果表明,中国因素已经成为当前国际资源品价格上涨的主要动力,其影响力度强于美元流动性、弱于美元汇率;中国的经济增长、国际资源品价格上升和输入性通货膨胀具有共生关系;输入性通货膨胀因素的影响强于经济增长、货币供应量因素和人民币升值的影响;货币供应量对通货膨胀的影响具有滞后性。因此,应大力发展期货市场,鼓励国内大型企业参股或者控股国外资源开发公司的股权,加强政府对国际大宗商品采购的宏观指导;同时,应加速调整中国经济增长结构。     

Non-Homothetic Preferences and the Non-Environmental Effects of Environmental Taxes

We show that, if the utility function is non-homothetic, environmental taxes can have positive non-environmental effects. These effects are illustrated with specific reference to taxes on gasoline and tobacco, in the context of a computational model. We also clarify the relationship between the double dividend (associated with a marginal change from a tax system with low reliance on environmentally motivated taxes) and the situation in which the optimal environmental tax rate is greater than the Pigouvian tax rate. These two situations are generated by rather similar combinations of parameters.JEL Code: H21, H23, D58     

Carbon Cap-and-Trade in China: A Comprehensive Framework

This article proposes a comprehensive framework to explore a possible carbon cap-and-trade scheme in China. By applying the case of China, our empirical results present the demand side and supply side of carbon-emission permits in the market and several other significant findings: (i) carbon dioxide (CO₂) marginal abatement cost varies a lot among different regions; (ii) in total, CO₂ emissions could have been reduced by 5.14 billion tons if all the provinces had achieved their anticipated environmental performance during 1997–2014; (iii) the equilibrium price of CO₂ trading is 241 RMB/ton, irrelevant to the original allocation of allowances.