Economic Effects of the 2003 Partial Integration Proposal in the United States

On January 7, 2003, President George W. Bush proposed a significant change in capital income taxation in the United States. In the context of a jobs and growth package, the President proposed to reduce substantially the double taxation of corporate-source income by eliminating investor-level taxes on dividends paid from earnings on which corporate tax had been paid. In addition, the Presidents proposal would have reduced the tax on retained earnings by allowing a basis adjustment for accumulated previously taxed retained earnings. Taken together, these proposals would have moved the U.S. income tax much closer to an integrated tax system along the lines outlined by the Treasury Department in President George H.W. Bushs administration a decade earlier.Putting together the impacts of the Presidents proposal on economic activity through greater capital accumulation and improved calculation, I estimate that the proposal, if it had been enacted in its original form, would yield a permanent increase of 0.48 percent in the U.S. economys potential output. This estimated gain does not include any gains made possible by improved corporate financial policy.At the time of the integration proposal, the author was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.     

Income Tax, Commodity Tax and Environmental Policy

Using the self-selection approach to tax analysis, thepaper analyses the impact of environmental externalities on Pareto-efficientnon-linear income tax, proportional commodity taxes and publicexpenditure. Consideration of externalities within this frameworkreveals intuitive insights into environmental tax policy, suggestingthat some earlier conclusions drawn in the relevant literaturemight be misleading. The results indicate that, while the externalitysdirect harmful impact raises marginal tax rates, the influencethrough the self-selection constraint tends to decrease the rise.We also derive conditions under which the Pigovian tax can bedetermined purely on the basis of internalizing the externality.     

The origin principle and the welfare gains from indirect tax harmonization

This paper establishes a parallelism between indirect tax harmonization when taxes are levied according to the destination principle and its counterpart when taxes are imposed on an origin basis. Using a simple two-country model of international trade it is argued that, under normal circumstances, indirect tax harmonization under the origin principle, considered as a movement of domestic taxes toward an appropriately designed average tax structure, is potentially Pareto improving. It is also shown that if the initial position is a Nash equilibrium, there are exceptional situations under which the above-mentioned reform may generate an actual Pareto improvement, so that both countries improve their welfare without any need for a compensating international transfer.     

Decomposition of Japanese Yen Interest Rate Data Through Local Regression

Seven different Japanese Yen interest rates recorded on a daily basisfor the period from 1986 to 1992 are simultaneously analyzed. Byintroducing a new concept of short term trend, we decomposeeach interest rate series into three components, long termtrend, short term trend and irregular. It is obtained by atwo step lowess smoothing technique. After that, amultivariate autoregressive model (MAR) is fitted to the vectorvalued time series obtained by combining those seven irregularcomponents. The decomposition and MAR model fitting were quitesatisfactory. It enables us to understand well various aspects ofinterest rate series from the trends, the MAR (2) coefficientsand its residuals. The result is compared with the decompositionthrough sabl and the advantages of our procedure will bedemonstrated in relations to other parametric model fitting likeARCH or GARCH. Based on the decomposition we can have betterdaily prediction and more stable long term forecasting.     

Environmental Taxes, International Capital Mobility and Inefficient Tax Systems: Tax Burden vs. Tax Shifting

This paper deals with the so-called double dividend of an environmental tax reform. In a model with only labor and a polluting input as factors of production, we find that society faces a trade-off between internalizing environmental externalities and raising revenues in the least distortionary way. However, if capital enters the production structure, an ecological tax reform may render the tax structure more efficient from a non-environmental point of view, thereby raising not only environmental quality but also private incomes.     

Horizontal Inequity and Vertical Redistribution

Inequality of post-tax income among pre-tax equals is evaluated andaggregated to form a global index of horizontal inequity in the income tax.The vertical action of the tax is captured by its inequality effect on averagebetween groups of pre-tax equals. Putting the two together, horizontalinequity measures loss of vertical performance. The identification problem,which has previously been thought insuperable, is addressed by a procedurevalidating the banding of income units into close equals groups. Thehorizontal and vertical effects of a major Spanish income tax reform areevaluated. Lines for future investigation are suggested.     

The impact of tax on foreign direct investment: Empirical evidence and the implications for tax integration schemes

We estimate the impact of taxation on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, using data on flows between seven countries for 1984 through 1989, and a sophisticated measure of the cost of capital. We find that the choice between domestic investment and total outward FDI is not significantly affected by taxation but that taxation does affect the location of outward FDI. These results are used to examine the impact of tax integration systems. Giving a tax credit to foreign shareholders may induce a large increase in inward FDI from exemption countries but not from partial-credit countries. For the United States, the total effect would be small.     

Commodity Taxation and Social Welfare: The Generalized Ramsey Rule

Commodity taxes have three distinct roles: (1) revenue collection, (2) interpersonal redistribution, and (3) resource allocation. The paper presents an integrated treatment of these three concerns in a second-best general equilibrium framework, which leads to the generalized Ramsey rule for optimum taxation. We show how many standard results on optimum taxation and tax reform have a straightforward counterpart in this general framework. Using this framework, we also try to clarify the notion of deadweight loss, as well as the relation between alternative distributional assumptions and the structure of optimum taxes.     

Company Tax Structure and Company Tax Incidence

This paper reviews conflicting theories of company tax incidence impliedby the alternative new and traditional views of dividends andexamines their contrasting policy implications. Whereas, under thetraditional view, closer integration of the corporate and personalincome tax systems is suggested, an alternative policy orientationemphasizing the non-distorting features of the classical system is impliedby the new view. Even if the traditional view is accepted, theimplications for design and reform of the company tax vary widely underalternative specifications of domestic and international tax policy objectives. Schedular alternatives to global income taxation are alsoconsidered.     

Parallel cartoons of fractal models of finance

Summary. Having been crafted to welcome a new scientific journal, this paper looks forward but requires no special prerequisite. The argument builds on a technical wrinkle (used earlier but explained here fully for the first time), namely, the authors grid-bound variant of Brownian motion B(t). While B(t) itself is additive, this variant is a multiplicative recursive process the author calls a cartoon. Reliance on this and related cartoons allows a new perspicuous exposition of the various fractal/multifractal models for the variation of financial prices. These illustrations do not claim to represent reality in its full detail, but suffice to imitate and bring out its principal features, namely, long tailedness, long dependence, and clustering. The goal is to convince the reader that the fractals/multifractals are not an exotic technical nightmare that could be avoided. In fact, the authors models arose successively as proper, natural, and even unavoidable generalization of the Brownian motion model of price variation. Considered within the context of those generalizations, the original Brownian comes out as very special and narrowly constricted, while the fractal/multifractal models come out as nearly as simple and parsimonious as the Brownian. The cartoons are stylized recursive variants of the authors fractal/multifractal models, which are even more versatile and realistic.This revised version was published online in January 2005 with corrections to the Cover date.     

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     

Urban Sprawl and the Property Tax

This paper explores the connection between the property tax and urban sprawl. While the tax's depressing effect on improvements reduces population density, spurring the spatial expansion of cities, a countervailing effect from lower dwelling sizes may dominate, raising densities and making cities smaller. The analysis shows that this latter outcome is guaranteed under CES preferences when the elasticity of substitution is high. But numerical results for the Leontief case (where is zero) suggest that the property tax encourages urban sprawl when substitution between housing and other goods is low. Thus, the distortions generated by the property tax may include inefficient spatial expansion of cities, suggesting the tax may belong on the list of causal factors identified by critics of urban sprawl.     

Information Monopoly and Commitment in Intermediary-Firm Relationships

A bank may use the private information that it acquires through monitoring to hold up borrowers. This information monopoly of the bank may inefficiently distort the borrowers investment decisions in environments where moral hazard is prevalent. The paper analyses how this problem is resolved within bank-firm relationships. In the benchmark case when the bank can contractually commit to future actions, the optimal contract turns out to be ambiguous in nature. When commitment contracts cannot be written, firms have an incentive to develop multiple banking relationships in order to decrease the inside banks bargaining power. However, with costly monitoring, this may defeat the initial purpose for contracting with a financial intermediary, namely information production. The paper argues that when contractual commitment is not feasible, bank size may serve as an alternative commitment device that prevents the bank from holding up borrowers in the future.     

Is the ‘Perfect’ Timing Strategy Truly Perfect?

In the presence of transaction cost, the perfect timing strategy which holds stocks in a period with positive excess return and holds cash in a period with negative excess return is not necessarily perfect. Using the optimal growth criterion, this paper derives the truly perfect timing strategy which can achieve the maximum long term growth. It is found that such a perfect timing strategy can achieve a much higher annual return than the perfect timing strategy under reasonable transaction cost. Also, it can achieve a return of over 80% when a review period is as short as a day and when transaction cost is low. Using the truly perfect timing strategy as a benchmark, the likely gains from imperfect timing can be more accurately assessed. For a less frequent review schedule, a market timer needs a very high correct prediction probability in order to be at par with the buy-and-hold strategy. However, the needed correct prediction probability is much less when the review schedule is more frequent. Also, the correct prediction probability needed to be at par with the buy-and-hold strategy increases with the transaction cost.     

Environmental Tax Reform in a Small Open Economy With Structural Unemployment

The paper examines the effects of an environmental tax reform in a small open economy with decentralised wage bargaining, monopolistically competitive firms and equilibrium unemployment. There is a tradable and a non-tradable sector and all firms use labour as well as an imported polluting factor of production (energy). A key result is that a tax on energy, recycled to reduce the payroll tax, reduces unemployment if there is a tradable sector wage premium. However, even if energy taxes may boost employment, welfare will not necessarily improve. Numerical simulations suggest that energy taxes in general provide an environmental dividend but also reduce real GDP.     

A New Approach to Group Structure, Burden Sharing, and the Equilibrium Provision of Public Goods

In the received model of the voluntary provision of a pure public good, the usual practice is to proceed from assumptions about the group characteristics to inferences about an implied outcome. The approach advocated in this paper reverses the traditional direction. Assuming a Nash equilibrium, we ask how to characterize the diverse set of group characteristics which will support it. Approaching the problem from this angle we define three crucial characteristics of a group-equilibrium: consumer's free rider inducing supply, zero contribution-inducing wealth and voluntary surplus tribute which is the amount by which a person's actual income exceeds his/her zero-contribution inducing wealth. Defining these indicators we show how they form the foundation of a complete mapping between the distribution of individual characteristics of a group, and equilibrium public good supply. Certain questions such as the interaction between size of the group and heterogeneity of incomes and tastes not yet adequately addressed are shown to yield easily to this approach.     

The Information Content of Bank Examinations

We identify three types of information from bank examinations—auditing information from verifying the honesty and accuracy of the bank's books, regulatory discipline information about the treatment of the bank by regulators, and private information about bank condition. We estimate these information effects by comparing the cumulative abnormal market returns associated with examinations in which the CAMEL rating remained unchanged, improved, and worsened. All three information effects are found to be greater for banks entering the examination process with unsatisfactory ratings from prior examinations. The only consistently strong effect found is that examination downgrades appear to reveal unfavorable private information about bank condition. The evidence also suggests that the information may reach the market in part through loan quality data released in quarterly financial statements.     

Conduit Entities: Implications of Indirect Tax-Efficient Financing Structures for Real Investment

As well known, companies shift income from high to low tax jurisdictions. Typically, profit shifting is achieved by direct financing structures whereby companies use debt finance in the high tax entity and equity finance in the low tax entity. However, certain tax policies can lead to indirect financing structures whereby a conduit entity provides an opportunity to achieve at least two deductions for interest expenses for an investment made in the host country. The effect of direct and indirect financing structures on real investment is compared.     

Optimal Consumption Taxes and Social Security Under Tax Measurement Problems and Uncertainty

A representative individual lives for two periods; works when young and depends on savings and a government operated social security system when old—the returns on both sources of income, when old, are random. Due to administrative problems the returns to savings are observed with some measurement error. Two alternative consumption tax systems are considered; the Registered Asset Treatment (RAT) and the Non-Registered Asset Treatment (NRAT). The advantage of the RAT is that it can perform a social insurance role while the disadvantage is that it imposes measurement error risk. Correlation between the random return on saving and its measurement error can provide a risk-hedging role that can be further strengthened by the RAT version. The NRAT version neither provides social insurance nor imposes measurement error risk. Both tax systems hedge against the uncertainties in the social security system. The taxpayer engages in precautionary saving in response to future uncertainty.     

Global Trends and Issues in Value Added Taxation

Since the late 1960s, the VAT has become one of the mainstays of the tax systems in over one hundred countries. Apparently, its revenue raising and neutrality properties make it an attractive tax in a rapidly integrating, high-tax world. Following an overview of VATs throughout the world, this article examines various VAT structure and policy issues under the following headings: tax coverage features, tax base aspects, hard-to-tax sectors, rate structure issues, and interjurisdictional coordination problems. It is shown that the normative requirements of a good VAT are often met only in the breach.