Does Precommitment Raise Growth? The Dynamics of Growth and Fiscal Policy

We develop an endogenous growth model driven by externalities from both private and public capital. The government levies distortionary taxation to finance a publicly provided consumption good and public infrastructure. Firms face adjustment costs. We compare the optimal and time-consistent policies in a linear-quadratic approximation of the model. Although the time-consistent equilibrium is sub-optimal in terms of ex-ante intertemporal welfare, it yields higher long-run growth and welfare, through an accumulation of assets by the state and a cut in government consumption.     

Fiscal Competition and Growth When Capital Is Imperfectly Mobile*

Is tax competition good for economic growth? We address this question using a simple model of endogenous growth. Governments in a system of many small jurisdictions benevolently maximize the welfare of immobile residents. Quadratic (de‐)installation costs limit the mobility of capital. We look at optimal taxation and long‐run growth, and we analyse the effects of cost parameter variations on taxation and growth. A race to the bottom in capital tax rates is only one possibility; the relationship between capital mobility and capital tax rates is not monotonic. Growth and capital mobility are unambiguously positively related.     

International and Intergenerational Aspects of Capital Income Taxation in an Endogenously Growing World Economy

This paper discusses how capital income taxation affects economic growth and welfare in an endogenously growing world economy with perfect capital mobility and worldwide externalities. Worldwide externalities provide a mechanism for equalizing national growth rates even with different capital income tax rates. The welfare of future generations is more influenced by a change in the growth rate than by the international spillover effect, which has been the primary concern of the previous studies. Moreover, our model finds intergenerational conflicts arising from the change in the growth rate caused by a change in the source tax rate of the foreign country.     

The effects of labour unions on international capital tax competition

Abstract We analyze the impact of labour market rigidities on tax competition between two imperfectly integrated countries. Following a shift from a competitive to a unionized labour market in both countries, the capital tax can be adjusted upward in the country with the less rigid labour market, whereas the capital tax is always adjusted downward in the other country. Moreover, by reducing the labour cost differential between countries, trade liberalization gives rise to tax and welfare convergences. Finally, when a country adopts a flexible labour market, the unionized country may attract the majority of capital.     

International Commodity Taxation under Monopolistic Competition

We analyze non‐cooperative commodity taxation in a two‐country trade model characterized by monopolistic competition and international firm and capital mobility. In this setting, taxes in one country affect foreign welfare through the relocation of mobile firms and through changes in the rents accruing to capital owners. With consumption‐based taxation, these fiscal externalities exactly offset each other and the non‐cooperative tax equilibrium is Pareto efficient. With production‐based taxation, however, there are additional externalities on the foreign tax base and the foreign price level that lead non‐cooperative tax rates to exceed their Pareto efficient levels.     

Capital income taxation in a growing world economy

This paper deals with dynamic adjustment in large economies to changes in the rate of capital income taxation or in the rate of investment tax credit in one country. The framework applied in the paper is a continuous-time, overlapping generations model with two countries. It features population growth and debt non-neutrality. We address impact and steady state effects of capital income tax and investment subsidy changes in the home country on consumption per capita, the capital intensity, and the per capita net foreign asset position in both countries. We also briefly consider individual welfare consequences of these policies.     

Trade Liberalization and Environmental Regulation on International Transportation

Incorporating pollution emissions from international transportation into a model of strategic trade and environmental policies, we investigate the effect of trade liberalization and environmental regulation on national welfare and the environment. Our model includes imperfectly competitive markets for international transportation and final products. We find that trade liberalization may reduce each country's welfare unless some level of environmental regulation on international transportation is in place. When international trade is liberalized initially, a mutual increase in the common emission tax rates may improve each country's welfare. However, when international trade is highly protected initially, imposing an emission tax may reduce welfare.     

Trade Liberalization in the Presence of Foreign Direct Investment and Tax Credits: Estimates for Costa Rica

The paper uses a calibrated general-equilibrium model to quantify the welfare impact of trade liberalization—and compute the optimal tariff structure—for Costa Rica when trade-policy-induced foreign direct investment and international capital taxation with credits are present. It shows that complete trade liberalization reduces Costa Rica's welfare, as it leads to an outflow of capital and loss of tax revenue which more than offset the efficiency gains from an enhanced resource allocation. The optimal tariff structure for the Costa Rican economy turns out to be a mixture of relatively small import tariffs and subsidies.     

Fiscal Policy,Economic Integration and Unemployment

In this paper fiscal policy is examined for an open economy characterized by unemployment due to efficiency wages. We allow for capital and firm mobility in a model where the government chooses the level of wage, source-based capital and profit taxation. The taxing choices of governments are analyzed in scenarios which differ with respect to the constraints imposed on the set of available taxes and on the mobility of firms. As a general result, the welfare loss from labor market imperfections increases when tax bases become internationally mobile, which suggests an increasing relevance of domestic labor-market reforms when tax bases become global.     

Quantitative Import Restrictions and Optimal Capital Taxes Under a System of Tax Credits

This paper examines the optimal capital tax policy under quantitative import constraints, and international capital tax credits. For a small capital-importing country, the optimal capital tax equals the foreign tax under a quota, and equals or exceeds the foreign tax under a VER. For a small capital-exporting country, the optimal policy towards capital is a zero tax under a quota, and a tax or a subsidy under a VER. Also examined are the welfare effects of capital taxes and trade liberalization, and the joint setting of the two policies, when both instruments are available to the government.     

Regional versus Multilateral Trade Liberalization,Environmental Taxation,and Welfare

The paper considers trade between identical countries with imperfectly competitive markets, and compares the impacts of regional and multilateral tariff reduction on strategic environmental taxation and welfare. While both forms of trade liberalization increase production and consumption in tariff‐reducing countries, regionalism also reduces production in a non‐participating country and may decrease its consumption. Consequently, regionalism and multilateralism change pollution tax and welfare in the tariff‐reducing countries in similar ways when pollution is local, but in dissimilar ways for global pollution. When pollution is global, regionalism is likely to be preferred to multilateralism for the establishment of free trade among countries.     

Taxation of Housing: Killing Several Birds with One Stone

High and sustained housing-price growth has been observed in many countries over recent decades. In Norway, real housing prices increased by 200 percent between 1990 and 2015, and many households have high debts. In addition, maintaining the welfare state as the population ages likely involves higher taxes in the coming years. Norway taxes housing leniently. Increased taxation of housing is a way of killing several birds with one stone: generating tax revenue, moderating housing prices, and increasing efficiency. In this paper, I use a microsimulation model to determine the effects on revenue and distribution of a hypothetical tax change where housing is taxed as other capital assets. I take into account the effect of taxation on housing demand, using a simple user-cost model. This housing tax would increase personal tax revenue by 11 percent and make the tax system more progressive. Housing prices would fall by 20 percent.     

Increasing Returns, Learning, and Beneficial Tax Competition

We analyze the welfare impact of entrepreneur mobility in a two‐country overlapping generations model. Increasing returns in production yield multiple equilibria that are stable under adaptive learning. Governments compete for the mobile resource by setting income taxes. We show that large welfare gains can arise from noncooperative taxation. If expectational barriers prevent the realization of high output equilibria, tax competition can sufficiently perturb expectations so that high steady states become attainable. Once in a high production regime, governments may institute cooperative tax increases or reductions so as to bring the economy to the global joint optimum without disturbing the regime.     

The Timing of Environmental Policy: A Note on the Role of Product Differentiation

We examine the role that product differentiation can play in the design of environmental policy under full commitment and no commitment on the part of the environmental regulator. We consider a setting with two firms selling a differentiated product which generates pollution through emissions. Firms can reduce their emissions by undertaking abatement activities while an environmental regulator taxes emissions. The main results are: (1) When products are highly differentiated, the optimal time-consistent (no commitment) tax is always lower than the optimal pre-commitment tax. As the degree of product differentiation decreases, for relatively efficient abatement technology and high damages, the time-consistent emission tax exceeds the optimal pre-commitment one. (2) Abatement when product differentiation is extensive is higher under the time-consistent regime unless the abatement technology is extremely efficient. The same ranking applies to social welfare. However, as products become more and more similar, these results are (partially) reversed and pre-commitment could lead to both higher levels of abatement and welfare.     

Capital controls and welfare

This paper computes welfare levels under different degree of capital controls and compares them with the welfare level under perfect capital mobility by using the methodology of Schmitt-Grohé and Uribe (2007). We show that perfect capital mobility is not always optimal and that capital controls may enhance an economy’s welfare level. There exists an optimal degree of capital-account restriction that achieves a higher level of welfare than that under perfect capital mobility, if the economy has costly financial intermediaries. The results of our analysis imply that as the domestic financial intermediaries are less efficient, the government should impose stricter capital controls in the form of a tax on foreign borrowing.     

Italy’s demographic trap: Voting for childcare subsidies and fertility outcomes

In this paper we study how population aging impacts the age distribution of the voting electorate and voters’ choices over childcare subsidies. We build a computable general equilibrium framework populated by heterogeneous agents who, over the course of their life-cycle, make endogenous and age-dependent fertility choices. The model is calibrated to match economic and population outcomes of the Italian economy. Child support favors young and fertile cohorts but can also impact all population subgroups through changes in prices, income taxation and population growth. A probabilistic voting model is used to measure voting outcomes over a range of childcare subsidy levels and tax policies. Our findings show that childcare subsidies have a positive impact on the total fertility rate and are welfare improving when financed with both capital and labor income taxation and in combination with lower pension contribution rates. A 10 percent increase in the level of subsidies can increase the population growth rate by an average of 0.47–0.70 percentage points. We find that voting choices of different population subgroups, while depending on the tax used to finance new expenditure, lead to lower levels of childcare subsidies, lower fertility rates and to a demographic ‘trap’.     

Optimal Capital Income Taxation with Means‐tested Benefits

This paper studies the interaction between capital income taxation and a means‐tested age pension. Our results document that the existence of a social insurance program financed from general revenue puts an upward pressure on the optimal tax rate. We also show that there is a negative relation between taper (benefit‐reduction) and optimal capital income tax rates. The potential welfare gain from optimizing capital taxation in the presence of a universal retirement transfer system is relatively higher. However, when the transfer is substantially means tested, the gain is lower, because the means test effectively operates as a tax on retirement capital.     

Investment scaling up and the role of government

This article studies the fiscal and welfare implications of a scaling up of public investment when the government is subject to inefficiencies on the spending and on the tax collection side. In our simulations, the scaling up of public investments results in higher long-run output and consumption levels but requires a fiscal stabilization package in order to preserve fiscal sustainability. The effects on consumers’ welfare after the fiscal adjustment are nontrivial. Our welfare analysis shows that consumers’ welfare is increased when the government smooths the fiscal adjustment via higher borrowing and not through an increase in taxation. Moreover, the comparison between several stabilization packages via tax adjustment shows that higher welfare is achieved when the government relies mostly on taxation of capital as this allows higher levels of consumption. Lower fiscal costs that do not undermine fiscal sustainability can however be achieved if the government manages to reduce inefficiency in tax collection. Finally, we consider a change in the trade regime that causes a decline in revenues. We find that the higher fiscal burden required to preserve fiscal sustainability would completely wipe out the welfare gain of higher public investments.     

Pollution, Capital Mobility and Tax Policies with Unemployment

In this paper we highlight aspects related to the links among unemployment, international capital mobility, and tax policies in a small open developing economy. Without international capital mobility, the joint optimal trade and environmental policies require a zero tariff and an emission tax lower than the Pigouvian tax. With international capital mobility and a capital tax (subsidy), the optimal emission tax rate is smaller (larger) compared to the rate when capital is untaxed. When both the emission tax and the capital tax/subsidy are jointly chosen optimally, then the optimal policy on capital is a lower subsidy, or even a tax, compared to the standard capital subsidy of the no pollution case.     

The Finnish Corporate Income Tax Reform and the Financial Strategy of Firms: A General Equilibrium Approach

This paper simulates the effects of the recent Finnish corporate tax reform with a computable general equilibrium model. It shows that the impact of the reform on the capital stock depends on the reactions of firms. If the financial strategy is changed to prefer dividend distribution and share issues, the cost of capital falls and the capital stock increases. On the other hand, if the criterion of financial policy is to minimise the welfare loss of current shareholders, the earlier financial behaviour should be continued. In that case,the induced higher cost of capital leads to a lower capital stock. The overall welfare evaluation of the tax reform is not sensitive to the regime shift: the reform should not have been implemented. This is because the increase in interest income taxation distorts saving decisions, expands the net foreign debt of the economy and weakens the terms of trade.