MULTIPLE LABOR GROUPS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON SMALL CITY AND TOWN SAMS AND CGE MODELS

This paper extends Schwarm and Cutler (2003) by incorporating three labor groups while using their methods to source data and provide an organizational framework that allows effective and straightforward creation of social accounting matrices (SAMs) and regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. While CGE models typically describe relatively large geographical areas and are therefore not able to capture the uniqueness of individual cities or towns within the region, our model allows simulations of small cities and towns that highlight regional similarities or differences. The differing effects of both an increase in manufacturing and a change in the sales tax are examined to demonstrate the insights and regional characteristics that such methods allow a researcher to obtain.     

The heterogeneous impact of taxation on economic development: New insights from a panel cointegration approach

In this paper, we study the role of taxation on long-run income performance. In the theoretical part of the study, we develop a stylized model based on Barro (1990), in which income taxation has two contradictory roles in the standard Solow (1956) setup: on the one hand, taxation appropriates resources that would otherwise be used for physical capital accumulation, and on the other, it is the source of government spending, which is used to support private production. In the empirical part of the study, the impact of consumption tax, personal income tax, corporate profit tax and property tax on income is estimated using the common correlated effects (CCE) panel cointegration approach, which allows for cross-sectional dependencies and provides both panel- and country-specific results. The panel findings for 30 OECD countries for the period of 1995–2016 indicate that only consumption tax has a statistically significant negative effect on long-run income. However, because the type and sign of the tax coefficients are heterogeneous for the country-specific results, we conclude that taxation has heterogeneous effects on income.     

Housing, taxation and retirement provision

This paper considers the tax treatment of housing and the issue of savings for retirement in the context of a simplified model that still allows key aspects of the household context to be realistically represented. A model is developed in which both housing and financial assets can be used as vehicles for household saving. Individuals face perfect capital markets and choose between owner-occupied and rented accommodations. For the model developed, it is shown that the tax advantage of owner-occupied housing is not fully removed even if imputed rents are subject to income taxation. However, deferred income taxation for both housing and savings in the form of financial assets would result in an equal treatment of tenants and owner-occupiers.     

Optimal property taxation in the presence of interregional capital mobility

A single region's optimal property tax policy is examined in a model with interregional capital mobility. In this model, property taxation is used to finance local public expenditures. Different tax rates may be imposed on property used to produce goods which are traded between regions and property used to produce nontraded goods (e.g., residential property). The key determinants of the difference between the optimal tax rates are identified, and it is argued that there exists a bias towards relatively low tax rates on property used to produce traded goods. The role of labor mobility is also investigated.     

Transaction taxes, greed and risk aversion in an agent-based financial market model

Recent agent-based financial market models came to the result that taxing financial transactions does not per se increase financial stability and that the response of volatility and misalignments to rising tax rates seem to be u-shaped. Moreover, greed and the risk appetite of traders are often blamed for financial instability and there is no evidence how greed and risk aversion affect the effectiveness of regulations in financial markets. We aim to add to this gap in the literature by analyzing how the effectiveness of transaction taxes depend on different behavioral patterns within an agent-based framework. Our simulations indicate that a tax rate of 0.1% demarcates the stabilizing tax regime from the destabilizing one. We figure out that transaction taxes are less effective, either when chartists trade more aggressively, fundamentalists trade less aggressively, agents switch more frequently between trading strategies or only have short memory in their fitness measures. Lower risk aversion of agents, however, makes higher tax rates more effective as indicated by a flatter volatility response curve. We conclude that additional regulations should concentrate on the traders’ responsibilities for their risk-exposure.     

Sooner or Later? – Paradoxical Investment Effects of Capital Gains Taxation under Simultaneous Investment and Abandonment Flexibility

This paper analyzes the impact of capital gains taxation on investment timing decisions for risky investment projects with entry and exit flexibility under differential tax rates for ordinary income and capital gains. We investigate whether capital gains taxation influences immediate and delayed investments asymmetrically, given the optimal abandonment decision. If capital gains taxation induces a lock-in effect, this effect is anticipated in the investment timing decision. In contrast to prior research, our numerical simulations show that this lock-in effect of capital gains taxation can induce normal as well as paradoxical effects on investment timing under simultaneous entry and exit flexibility. A paradoxical timing effect, i.e., investment accelerated by capital gains taxation, especially emerges for high liquidation proceeds or, more conservative tax accounting, low interest rates, and low volatilities. In these cases, capital gains taxation reduces the value of the option to invest and hereby increases the propensity to invest immediately. As a second paradoxical tax effect, capital gains taxation may favor delayed real investment over financial investment. Facing these results, tax legislators should not use capital gains taxation as a short-term tax policy instrument to influence investors' timing decisions.     

Is corporate payout taxation a long run phenomenon? Evidence from international data

This paper examines whether dividend and capital gains taxation influences corporate payout policy using the country level data of 21 countries in panel versions of time series models. We find that dividend relative to capital gains tax penalty is cointegrated with corporate payouts (dividends and share repurchases) i.e. corporate payout taxation may be a long run phenomenon. Further, the cointegrating vector estimates are largely consistent with the traditional view of dividend taxation whereby the tax penalty discourages dividends, while the estimates give limited support to the premise that firms substitute dividends for share repurchases in response to an increase in dividend tax penalty. Long run causality also operates between the tax penalty and payouts in the error correction models. Additionally, dividend tax appears to be more influential than capital gains tax on dividend payout decisions. Lastly, taxation affects dividends more significantly in countries with high investor protection.     

On Market Structure and the Taxation of Exhaustible Resources:

A bstract . The older static theory of the taxation of exhaustible resources is distinguished from the modern theory based on the work of Harold Hotelling Both advocate some form of a profits-based tax , which is appropriate for conditions of perfect competition. But an oligopolistic market structure has additional quasi-rents which could be captured through taxation. It is argued that a sales tax will not only capture the rents but also lower the cut-off grade of the ore mined.     

Globalization and tax policy

Globalization is thought to reduce the ability of governments to collect taxes. If labor and capital can move between jurisdictions, then attempts to tax these factors will lead to a “vanishing taxpayer” as factors flee from high- to low-tax regions. More broadly, globalization suggests that there will be some convergence in tax rates across countries. This paper questions this view by examining the impact of globalization on taxation using a two-country, two-factor, two-good model. In particular, we ask how globalization, measured by increased international factor mobility, affects the ability of governments to tax factors. Our quantitative analysis indicates that, while increased mobility reduces revenues to some extent, governments still retain significant ability to collect taxes.     

The coupon-induced tax clientele effect in bond prices

A pricing model for default-free bonds under differentia! taxation of coupon income and capital gains is presented which explicitly considers coupon-induced tax clienteles. Subsequent analysis provides indirect evidence in support of the existence of the coupon-induced tax clientele effect, while direct evidence is provided by analyzing differences in marginal tax rates estimated across different coupon levels for sets of US Treasury bonds with the same maturity date. The results are also generally consistent with the traditional notion that marginal tax rates are inversely related to coupon levels.     

Factor substitution and taxation in a finance constrained economy

In this paper, we examine the effects of constant-rate factor taxation on macroeconomic stability in the Woodford (1986) model. Our focus is on how the degree of factor substitution, as measured by the elasticity of factor substitution (EOS) in production, affects different balanced-budget tax rules. Analytically, we show that indeterminacy can occur under capital income taxation only when the EOS is very low, whereas indeterminacy under labor income taxation is not subject to the EOS restriction. This finding is robust when we tax all of the factor incomes with equal rates. Thus, in terms of macroeconomic stability, taxing capital income is preferred to taxing labor income.     

Tax aggressiveness and idiosyncratic volatility

This study finds that aggressive tax strategies adopted by a firm affect idiosyncratic stock return volatility. Aggressive tax strategies, which I measure as tax paid by a firm divided by pretax income (adjusted for special items), are associated with higher levels of idiosyncratic stock volatility. Uncertainty associated with tax strategies may result due to several factors, such as penalties, fines, and additional tax payments if particular tax strategies are disallowed by taxation authorities, or if there are changes in tax rules. Such uncertainty affects the future cash flows of a firm and is reflected in more volatile stock returns. Financial constraints, corporate governance mechanisms, and information environments surrounding a firm influence the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and effective tax rates.     

Distortionary Taxation and Labour Market Performance

Quarterly estimates of consumption, capital and labour tax rates are provided for six major OECD countries. We then use the 'stylized facts' methodology to evaluate the strength, sign and phase of cyclical comovements between tax rates and labour market variables. Labour taxes distort labour market de-cisions and help explain why the unemployment rate is so high in continental Europe. However, labour taxes cannot be the only determinant of diverging unemployment rates since the labour force is also reduced by higher taxes. Finally, we offer some preliminary structural evidence showing employment growth in particular to be negatively related to the taxation of labour.     

Exploring tax evasion in the context of political uncertainty

We present a model of agents facing the uncertainty of two future forms of government who are able to insure against this uncertainty by hiding funds from taxation. In order to choose whether or not to hide funds from taxation, agents need to know policy choices that each government would make should it come to power. But each government, before it could make its decision, would need to know the choices of the agents who would, for example, produce tax revenues. This informational tension is resolved endogenously. We derive the resulting level of tax evasion in society and the optimal choices made by the potential governments. We examine how changes in governmental structure would affect the level of tax evasion, and how that, in turn, would affect a particular form of capital flight.     

Union wage setting and progressive income taxation with heterogeneous labor: theory and evidence from the German income tax reforms 1986–1990

This paper analyzes the effects of tax shifting in a model with union wage setting and progressive income taxation. The setup allows for different skill levels of the workforce and accounts for the union's distributional objective of income equality. The theoretical predictions of the model are empirically tested with a panel of German micro-data covering the period of the income tax reforms 1986–1990. It is shown that average taxes raise wages, whereas increasing the progressivity of the tax system reduces wages. The effect of progressivity on high-skilled labor tends to be less significant and smaller. Stronger preferences for equality compress the (pre-tax) wage distribution.     

Inactive transfer policies and efficiency in general overlapping-generations economies

I analyze how public debt restores Pareto efficiency in overlapping-generations economies. My model allows non-stationarity across time and accommodates many heterogeneous and multiperiod lived agents per generation and goods per period. I show that efficiency can always be restored by a once-and-for-all augmentation of initial wealth (the introduction of debt) partially financed by a series of ‘small’ taxes (the summation of average tax rates being less than any prescribed tolerance). I reconcile this positive result with well-known counter-examples. To establish my general proposition, I extend to my model Cass' well-known price characterization of efficiency.     

Transaction costs, capital-gains taxes, and housing demand

The paper considers the effect of transaction costs—particularly in the form of capital-gains taxes—on the aggregate demand for owner-occupied housing. The framework is an overlapping-generations model, where consumers can avoid the transaction costs (taxes) by keeping the same house for both periods of life. The first part of the paper analyzes the consumer's choice problem. It distinguishes between costs that are fixed irrespective of the size of the house bought or sold, and costs such as capital-gains taxes that are related to the house value. It is shown that higher transaction costs have lock-in effects, inducing consumers to keep the same house for both periods. Also it is found that under a wide variety of circumstances the amount of housing demanded will increase as the household is being locked in. Finally, the paper looks at the effects on aggregate demand from an increase in capital-gains taxes. It is shown that an increased rate of taxation decreases demand for low tax rates. But for high tax rates, when lock-in effects become important, one generally gets the opposite effect; high tax rates tend to increase housing demand.     

C2C模式电子商务税收问题探析

是否应对C2C模式电子商务征税以及何时征税是近几年研究的热点。本文对C2C模式电子商务征税的可行性和面临的挑战进行了分析,认为对C2C模式电子商务征税有法可依,若对其免税则是对其他经营形式的不公。但同时由于目前社会对C2C电子商务征税缺乏认同,加上我国信息化水平较低,对C2C模式电子商务的税收监管难度大、成本高,因此,在现行的税收体系下无法实现有效征税。此外,C2C电子商务在解决就业等方面能发挥重要作用,对其征税会抑制人们利用网络创业的热情,不利于电子商务的发展。所以,在当前的环境下,对C2C电子商务征税应予以暂缓,对其采取扶持策略;切实推进网络实名制,同时税务部门要加强与电子商务平台的合作,建立基本信息采集制度;加强税务信息化建设,提高税务信息化管理水平,推进税收征管的改革;提高税务人员的综合素质以适应现代网络税收的要求。     

A dynamic,policy oriented model of the regulated housing market: The Swedish prototype

The design and preliminary implementation of a dynamic, policy oriented model of the regulated housing market is presented. The model is developed in the context of the Swedish housing market institutions which combine nearly all features encountered in other nations. Free buying and selling by homeowners, black markets, swapping of dwellings and rationing of price controlled dwellings both by landlords and a public authority are included as explicit transaction options (with distinct costs) available to existing and newly formed households in the market. The model simulates a sequence of temporary annual equilibria which are obtained by balancing effective demands with effective supplies. Household mobility choices, landlords' selling decisions and the rationing of dwellings at fixed prices are derived from stochastic maximization resulting in multinomial or nested logit models of choice behavior. An aggregated preliminary 16-equation version is calibrated with partly real, partly guesstimated data for the Greater Stockholm region in the mid-seventies. Qualitative comparative statatics and income compensated policy simulations with this version illustrate some unintended effects of Swedish housing policy resulting from the manipulation of the income tax, an income tax dependent property tax and housing allowances. The model provides a tool whereby deregulating institutional changes which are potentially Pareto improving can be identified. If, however, current institutions such as the rationing of dwellings result in sufficiently lower transactions costs for households relative to the free market, then deregulation is not Pareto preferred.     

INTERNATIONAL TAX COMPETITION AND DOUBLE TAXATION

This paper examines international tax competition, with respect to both corporate income tax rates and tax rules for double taxation. Unlike existing studies, this study assumes that governments set non-discriminatory tax rates on domestic- and foreign-sourced corporate income and can choose no tax allowance as the tax rule. Consequently, the Nash equilibrium outcomes contradict the intuition underlying previous studies: no tax allowance is chosen as the tax rule where world economic welfare can be maximized. A capital-exporting country gains whereas a capital-importing country loses, compared to the case where there is a tax allowance of any kind.