SOCIAL SECURITY DEPENDENT BENEFITS,NET PAYROLL TAX,AND MARRIED WOMEN'S LABOR SUPPLY

This paper examines how Social Security dependent benefits impact the labor supply of married women aged 25–54. Specifically, I investigate whether the decrease in the rate of return to women's work discourages them from participating in the labor force by simulating expected net payroll tax rates and dependent benefits. Dependent benefits may reduce the net return to women's work, as they usually pay the full payroll tax without receiving marginal benefits for additional earnings if they claim benefits based on their husbands' earnings records. The results show that high net payroll tax rates reduce married women's work incentives, particularly those near retirement age. (JEL H24, H55, J22)     

Competitiveness and Exemptions From Environmental Taxes in Europe

A number of European countries have introduced a variety of environmental taxes. A common characteristic of their implementation is the inclusion of exemptions and tax relief, in particular for (some sectors of) manufacturing industry. This paper analyses the pattern and motivation of exemptions as they have developed in Western European countries, making clear the difference between the nominal and effective tax rates once the exemptions have been taken into account. The principal motivation for exemptions relates to concern about competitiveness. While particular environmentally-intensive sectors may have some grounds for concern, even these might be able to achieve cost-effective environmental improvements, such that their competitive position is not over-disadvantaged, while for an economy structured like the UK's, an environmental tax plus rebate scheme, sometimes called an ecological tax reform, would be likely to yield benefits in terms of competitiveness. The exemptions usually run counter to the environmental economic logic of using environmental taxes to internalise social costs and give economic signals that are based on the full costs of production, and they are likely to increase the costs of achieving a given level of emission reduction. With little justification for them also on the grounds of competitiveness, it would therefore be undesirable on both economic and environmental grounds for them to remain a feature of the implementation of environmental taxes in the future.     

Insurance Taxation and Insurance Fraud

It is common practice in the United States to impose a sales tax on insurance premiums. Insurance benefits are not taxed, and it is typically argued that they should not be taxed because they compensate for a loss. In this paper I present a case where the taxation of insurance benefits is preferable to the taxation of premiums. When insurance fraud is present—in the form of ex post moral hazard—a tax on insurance premiums increases the number of fraudulent claims in the economy, whereas a tax on insurance benefits may reduce fraud. More importantly, however, policyholders are made better off with a benefit tax than with a premium tax.     

The political economy of contributive pensions in developing countries

This paper sheds light on the role of public institutions as a way to reduce tax evasion through a close link between payroll taxation and pension benefits. We use a political economy model in which agents have the possibility to hide part of their earnings in order to avoid taxation and, where the public system is more efficient in providing annuitized pension benefits than the private sector. We show that in the absence of evasion costs, agents are indifferent to the tax rate level as they can always perfectly adapt compliance so as to face their preferred effective tax rate. There is unanimity in favour of the maximum tax rate and, the public pension system is found to be partially contributive in order to increase tax compliance and thus the resources collected. This, in turn, enables higher redistribution toward the worst-off agents. When evasion costs are introduced, perfect substitutability between compliance and taxation breaks down. At the majority-voting equilibrium, individuals at the bottom of the income distribution who are in favour of more redistribution, and those at the top who want to transfer more resources to the old age, form a coalition against middle-income agents, in favour of high tax rates. In addition to the previous tax base argument, the optimal level of the Bismarkian pillar is now chosen so as to account for political support.     

Private law enforcement,fine sharing,and tax collection: Theory and historical evidence

This paper contributes to the literature on private law enforcement by proposing a novel solution to the problem of underenforcement by monopolistic enforcers. Monopolistic enforcers underinvest in enforcement because they ignore the social benefits of deterrence. We show that this problem can be partially resolved by combining law enforcement with tax collection because a joint enforcer-collector will have an interest in reducing the crime rate in order to maximize his tax income. In support of the theory, we discuss two historical examples of this practice: decentralized law enforcement under European feudalism, and centralized law enforcement in the Ottoman Empire.     

Wage bargaining, labor-tax progression, and welfare

This paper analyzes the effect of labor-tax progression on employment and welfare in an economy with a unionized labor market. The government influences wage bargaining through its tax policies. Wages can be reduced by increasing the marginal labor-tax rate. If there are no restrictions on profit taxation, a first-best optimum with full employment is realized; this first-best optimum can always be implemented by a progressive tax schedule. If profit taxation is restricted, unemployment may arise. For this case, we show that the welfare-maximizing degree of tax progression is influenced by a variety of factors, in particular the wage elasticity of labor demand, the distribution of bargaining power, and the existence of unemployment benefits. Examples are given for both progressive and regressive tax structures. Comparative-static analysis reveals that a decline in union bargaining power, an increase in unemployment benefits, and an increase in the overall work force reduce the efficient degree of tax progression.     

税负抑制了公司投资吗?——基于国有股权私有收益的解释

文章分析了税负对公司投资决策的影响.与民营控股股东不同,作为国有企业的最终股东,政府不仅可以获得与股权投资相关的收益,而且可以获得独占性的税收,独占性的税收收入越高,政府控股的私有收益越大.因此,国有企业在投资决策时不仅考虑税后现金流量,而且会关注相关的预期税负,这提高了国有企业的投资?预期税负敏感性;政府对税收的需求越大,国有企业的投资?预期税负敏感性越高.实证结果表明:(1)与民营控股上市公司相比,国有控股上市公司的投资与预期税负之间的负相关关系更弱;(2)随着注册地基础设施投资回报率的增加,国有控股上市公司的投资与预期税负之间的负相关性显著下降.因此,最大化税收收入也是国有企业投资决策的重要考虑因素.文章为我国股权结构在公司财务决策中的作用提供了新的研究视角.     

TAXES,INCOME, AND RETIREMENT SAVINGS: DIFFERENCES BY PERMANENT AND TRANSITORY INCOME

This article examines the determinants of and benefits from saving for retirement in tax‐preferred accounts by permanent and transitory income levels. We find that higher incomes (both permanent and transitory) are associated with a greater probability to contribute and larger contributions. We also find that tax benefits for retirement savings increase strongly with income, although the increase is slightly smaller when taxpayers are ranked by their permanent (rather than current) income. In addition, we find that a large portion of the benefits from the Saver's Credit go to taxpayers who would not be eligible based on their permanent income. Finally, we find that recent tax changes (including the introduction of the Saver's Credit) significantly increased contributions among low‐income households, although the effect was centered among those with only transitorily low income. (JEL H24, H31, E21)     

美国养老基金参与公司治理的实践对我国的借鉴

随着美国养老基金资产额的增长及其对股票投资比重的上升,养老基金已从被动投资者变为主动所有者,参与公司治理以取得投资收益和价值增值也成为一种趋势。由于不同类型的养老基金具有不同的投资目标、责任与义务等,在选择治理战略、参与公司治理方面存在着明显差异。美国养老基金参与公司治理的发展模式与经验,对于中国社保基金的入市具有较强的借鉴意义。     

Environmental Preservation, Sectoral Unemployment, and Trade in Resources

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to examine the optimal level of environmental preservation in terms of its costs and benefits for a closed as well as an open economy. The optimal preservation policy for a closed economy is to tax the general population and use the tax revenue to compensate affected workers. Furthermore, for a small open economy, free trade in resources can meet whatever shortage of domestic productive resources that may occur, thereby leading to a higher optimal level of environmental preservation.     

Equilibrium taxation and experience rating in a federal system of unemployment insurance

This paper seeks to explain why there is apparent redistribution of tax burdens in UI systems from high to low unemployment firms. In addition to providing reasons for the direction taken by redistribution, the model interprets the accompanying institution of imperfect experience rating, defined as the practice of taxing firms by less than a dollar for every dollar of benefits paid a firm's employees. The null hypothesis views the design of the UI tax as the result of intentional redistribution of economic rents between industries. Concluding sections explore the limitations on redistribution imposed by a federal system and discuss alternative explanations for the design of the UI laws. Empirical evidence is provided on the redistributive hypothesis, which generally receives strong support.     

Job creators,job creation,and the tax code

This paper considers the role of the tax code in determining income dispersion and vacancy creation. A “span‐of‐control” model is embedded into a search and matching environment. A cut to the tax on profits in isolation improves job creation and reduces before‐tax income inequality. The impact of a budget‐balancing increase in the wage tax depends on the bargaining power of firms. When it is high, firms pick up the lion's share of the tax burden. The tax acts like a barrier to entry: it benefits large firms at the expense of marginal ones. Net effects are an increase in unemployment and before‐tax income dispersion. Low firm bargaining power means workers pick up more of the tax burden. It acts like a subsidy to entrepreneurship reinforcing the impact of the profit tax reduction. Taxes on the returns to capital leave everyone worse off.     

Social security is NOT a substitute for annuity markets

Common wisdom suggests that a fully-funded actuarially fair social security system should increase welfare when households face longevity risk and annuity markets are missing. This wisdom is based on the observation that social security pays benefits as life annuities and therefore appears to complete the market. However, we argue that common wisdom is based on a benefit-only analysis that ignores a fundamental cost—social security crowds out the bequests that households leave (and receive) in general equilibrium. We conduct a general equilibrium cost-benefit analysis of the longevity insurance role of social security, and we show that under certain conditions this decline in bequest income offsets any possible gains from access to a public annuity pool. We abstract from distortions to national income and factor prices to show that the equilibrium bequest channel is all that is needed to reach this conclusion.     

Tax havens,income shifting,and redistributive taxation

This paper investigates the effects of tax havens on nonhaven countries’ redistributive policies. We consider that a nonhaven country contains individuals with different labor productivities. A tax is imposed on the income, and the revenues are evenly distributed. The tax rate is determined by majority voting, which reflects the median voter’s preferences. The presence of havens gives rise to the mobility of tax bases, which may increase the nonhaven country’s tax rate in two ways. First, it leads to a median voter with a lower productivity; second, it may enlarge the marginal tax revenue from raising the tax rate. In addition, we find that a stricter antihavens regulation may lower the tax rate. We further show that income shifting is likely to reduce the amount of the transfers. The case of tax evasion is also taken into consideration.     

论我国费税制度的改革

费与税是不同的两个概念,而且是政府财政收入形式的两个不同的组成部分,虽然征收对象有所不同,但都是政府的调节工具,这决定了两的征收目的是非盈利性的,一般不能像私人物品那样进行企业化经营,但是税与费各有不同的作用和范围,在供应方式也也不尽相同,所以两又不能互相替代,而我们现在的许多章和件中,却大量的使用“费改税”的不科学提法,因此,有必要明确划分税与费的边界,做到税费共存,税费归位。     

Dividend taxes,corporate investment,and ‘Q’

Taxes on corporate distributions have traditionally been regarded as a ‘double tax’ on corporate income. This view implies that while the total effective tax rate on corporate source income affects real economic decisions, the distribution of this tax burden between the shareholders and the corporation is irrelevant. Recent research has suggested an alternative to this traditional view. One explanation of why firms in the United States pay dividends in spite of the heavy tax liabilities associated with this form of distribution is that the stock market capitalizes the tax payments associated with corporate distributions. This capitalization leaves investors indifferent at the margin between a corporation's decision to pay out dividends or to retain earnings. This alternative view holds that while changes in the dividend tax rate will affect shareholder wealth, they will have no impact on corporate investment decisions.This paper develops econometric tests which distinguish between these two views of dividend taxation. By extending Tobin's ‘q’ theory of investment to incorporate taxes at both the corporate and personal levels, the implications of each view for corporate investment decisions can be derived. The competing views may be tested by comparing the performance of investment equations estimated under each theory's predictions. British time series data are particularly appropriate for testing hypotheses about dividend taxes because of the substantial postwar variation in effective tax rates on corporate distributions. The econometric results suggest that dividend taxes have important effects on investment decisions.     

The implications for households of environmental tax reform (ETR) in Europe

The paper discusses the distributional implications of environmental tax reform (ETR) for households, and presents new results from modelling the impacts of a major ETR for the European Union. The distributional effects arise from the new environmental taxes, any tax reductions made as part of the ETR, the wider macroeconomic impacts from the ETR, any special provisions in the ETR, and the environmental benefits from the ETR. The paper's literature review makes clear that while the impacts from taxes on the household use of energy are very often regressive, transport taxes tend not to be, although the impacts differ between urban and rural households. Moreover, the net distributional impact is often less regressive, or not at all, once the wider distributional effects are taken into account. Residual regressive effects can in principle be removed by further adjustments in the tax or benefits system. The modelling results suggest that an ETR in Europe will actually increase real incomes across the EU as a whole, and will not be generally regressive, although the results differ by country and for different socio-economic groups. The political acceptability of ETR may depend on the worst effects on these groups being mitigated in some way.     

Illiquid life annuities

In this paper, we consider illiquid life annuity contracts and show that they may be preferred to those illustrated by Yaari. In an overlapping generations economy, liquid life annuities are demanded only if the equilibrium is dynamically inefficient. However, an equilibrium displaying a positive demand for illiquid life annuities is indeed efficient. In this latter case, the welfare at steady state is larger if illiquid life annuity contracts are available.     

A general equilibrium analysis of property tax incidence

Mieszkowski's (1972) analysis of the ‘new view’ of property tax incidence dealt with a model of an economy containing only one sector and three factors, in which labor was immobile. Brueckner (1981) incorporated an equal utility condition into his general equilibrium analysis of property tax incidence to take worker mobility into account. His model, however, did not have capital as an input factor and the benefits of public expenditure were ignored. This paper extends previous research by using a general equilibrium model of an economy with two sectors, three factors, and multiple communities. Both capital and labor are assumed to be mobile and Brueckner's labor mobility condition is modified to include public expenditure effects. While the results of the analysis support the ‘new view’, they qualify the original Mieszkowski studies in many aspects. The model also sheds light on tax incidence in no-tax communities, which was often ignored in earlier studies.     

THE DISSAVING OF ANNUITY WEALTH AND MARKETABLE WEALTH IN RETIREMENT

This paper compares the automatic dissaving of annuity wealth with the discretionary dissaving of marketable wealth that would result from life-cycle consumption behavior by retired persons. In simulations of a life-cycle model based on the isoelastic utility function and realistic parameter values, we find that marketable wealth normally would be dissaved more rapidly than annuity wealth. This suggests that empirical findings that show the opposite relation-slow dissaving of marketable wealth being accompanied by faster dissaving of annuity wealth (or total wealth)-should not be interpreted as evidence that supports the life-cycle theory.