Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model with Productive Government Spending

The goal of this paper is to analyse the effects of fiscal policy upon the long-run balanced growth rate in an endogenous growth model in which sustained per capita growth is the result of productive government spending. Assuming that labour is supplied inelastically, it is shown that increases in non-productive government spending, i.e. public consumption or lump-sum transfers, always reduce the balanced growth rate, whereas there exists a growth-maximizing investment subsidy rate and income tax rate. Moreover, a rise in a tax on consumption increases economic growth if it raises public investment. If labour supply is elastic the elasticity of labour supply crucially determines the growth-maximizing income tax rate and an increase in the tax on consumption may raise or lower economic growth.     

FISCAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE IMPERFECT LABOR MARKET

Using a simple overlapping generations model with the growth engine of public capital by incorporating the union wage setting, we examine the effects of fiscal policies on unemployment, economic growth and welfare in the imperfect labor market. We demonstrate that the growth‐maximizing tax in the imperfect labor market is larger than that of the perfect labor market. However, as the allocation ratio of public capital increases, the growth‐maximizing tax in the imperfect labor market approaches that of the perfect labor market, thus reducing the unemployment rate. The policy implications of the intergenerational welfare aspects are also mentioned.     

PUBLIC CAPITAL,TAXATION AND ENDOGENOUS GROWTH IN A FINITE HORIZONS MODEL

This paper presents development of an endogenously growing finite horizons model with public capital, and investigates macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and a change in life expectancy. Specifically regarding novel results, a growth‐maximizing income tax rate exists that is less than the elasticity of public capital to output. In addition, in the model with income tax financing, there might exist an inverted‐U‐shaped relationship between life expectancy and growth, which is consistent with some empirical evidence. In this paper, we elucidate the interaction among public capital accumulation, taxes, growth, welfare and life expectancy.     

SOCIAL CONFLICT,GROWTH AND FACTOR SHARES

Standard growth theory is based on atomistic agents with no strategic interactions among them. In contrast, we model growth as resulting from a one‐off, strategic game between ‘workers’ and owners of capital (‘capitalists’) on factor shares, in an otherwise standard ‘AK’ growth model. The resulting distribution of income between factors further determines the marginal revenue product of capital and the rate of growth. We analyse the properties of four equilibria: competitive, Stackelberg equilibrium, a hybrid non‐cooperative regime and cooperative, in terms of labour shares, growth and welfare. Our model thus endogenizes key aspects of the ‘social contract’.     

COMPARATIVE DYNAMICS AND OPTIMAL FISCAL POLICY IN A SIMPLE MODEL OF ENDOGENOUS GROWTH

I analyze optimal fiscal policy choices in a continuous time endogenous growth model similar to Barro’s. The government uses income taxes from representative ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ households to finance purchases of productive goods and to make transfer payments to poor households. Increases in government purchases can increase the growth rate, while increases in transfers reduce growth. I examine the socially optimal allocation of government resources to purchases and transfer payments and describe conditions under which both the rich and poor would benefit from cuts in entitlements if the savings are used to finance increased government purchases of productive goods.     

Wealth Distribution,Elasticity of Substitution and Piketty: An ‘Anti‐Dual’ Pasinetti Economy

This paper studies the dynamics of wealth distribution between workers and capitalists in a neoclassical growth model with differential saving rates. It shows that if capitalists are thriftier than workers and the factors elasticity of substitution is high enough to ensure endogenous growth, capitalists’ share of total wealth asymptotically tends to one. It is also proved that a tax on capital income shifts the long run distribution of wealth in workers’ favor, and that the capitalists’ share of total wealth is a decreasing function of the tax rate. The results of the paper are compared to Piketty's ‘fundamental laws’ of capitalism.     

Trade patterns,unemployment and growth

This paper analyses the implications of a minimum wage in an open economy two-sector model where the effect of growth on trade and unemployment is explicitly determined. The first-best policy is a wage subsidy to all employment while the second-best policy is a production tax cum subsidy. In the absence of policy intervention it is shown that growth in the short run results in decreasing unemployment for the home country if it is specialized in consumption goods or incompletely specialized provided that the minimum wage is binding. If the economy is specialized in investment goods, then unemployment may increase initially but as growth continues the minimum wage no longer remains binding and full employment is restored. In the long run by examining the dynamic interaction between trade and growth it is possible for the economy to be incompletely specialized with unemployment. If the economy specializes in consumption goods, it is possible for the economy to attain full employment.     

Optimal taxation and growth with public goods and costly enforcement

This paper studies optimal direct and indirect taxation in an endogenous growth framework with a productive public good and costly tax collection. Optimal (growth-maximizing) tax rules are derived under exogenous collection costs. The optimal direct–indirect tax ratio is shown to be negatively related to the administrative costs of collecting these taxes, as documented in cross-country data. This result also holds under endogenous collection costs (with these costs inversely related to administrative spending on tax enforcement), but for these to generate significant effects on tax collection requires implausibly high degrees of efficiency in spending, or the allocation of a large fraction of resources to tax enforcement. Depending on how it is financed, the latter policy may entail adverse effects on growth. Improving ‘tax culture’ and the sense of civic duty through greater budgetary transparency may be a more effective policy to improve tax collection and promote economic growth.     

The Effect of State Corporate Income Tax Rate Cuts on Job Creation

This paper compares the employment growth of states that enacted corporate income tax rate cuts in the past 23 years with those making no changes. Overall employment comparisons from 1990 to 2012 suggest that a reduction in the corporate income tax rate is associated with faster job creation. The states that cut corporate income tax rates started with slower employment growth than the states that made no changes. However, the growth gaps between the two groups of states disappeared in about five years after the tax cuts were made. Regression results confirm the observation that lower corporate tax rates have a significant and positive effect on employment growth. The enactment of a tax rate cut also has the additional but temporary benefit of promoting job creation as businesses adjust to the new tax rate. However, this benefit is temporary and only occurs during first year of the enactment of a tax cut.     

Trade and growth in the presence of distortions

Abstract

Tariffs and other policy distortions typically lower real national income relative to what it otherwise would have been for any given rate of factor accumulation. Even so, policy distortions may raise an economy's real measured growth rate and, somewhat deceivingly, give the impression that national welfare has benefited from things like tariff protection. This would be an incorrect conclusion. This paper discusses the issue of how policy distortions can affect the rate of growth for a small, open economy. For example, in the presence of exogenously given factor accumulation, a tariff can either raise or lower an economy's growth rate (measured by the change in the value of output at world prices), relative to the no-distortion growth rate. We also discuss the relevance of this result for tariff uniformity, ‘tariff jumping’ foreign direct investment, and the empirical literature on trade and growth. Finally, we use a numerical simulation model of Egypt to assess whether the costs of its tax distortions have increased or declined over time.     

Optimal tariffs,optimal taxes and economic development

Cross-section and time-series data suggest that nations substitute income taxes for tariffs as they develop. This paper confronts the data within the context of a two-country open-economy endogenous growth model in which public expenditure is financed by an optimal tariff and income tax. When the latter is subject to administrative costs, the model predicts that the government will optimally substitute the income tax for the tariff as output rises along the transition. The model is calibrated and a simulation yields time paths for the shares of total government revenue derived from the tariff and the income tax that are consistent with the data.     

Distributional Effects of Public Investment when Wealth and Classes are Back

In developed economies, wealth inequality is high, while public capital is underprovided. Here, we study the impact of heterogeneity in saving behavior and income sources on the distributional effects of public investment. A capital tax is levied to finance productive public capital in an economy with two types of households: high income households who save dynastically and middle income households who save for retirement. We find that inequality is reduced the higher the capital tax rate is and that low tax rates are Pareto‐improving. There is no clear‐cut trade‐off between efficiency and equality: middle income households’ consumption is maximal at a capital tax rate that is higher than the rate which maximizes high income households’ consumption.     

Distributive Policies and Economic Growth: An Optimal Taxation Approach

In an infinite‐horizon endogenous growth model a capital income cum investment subsidy tax is considered to investigate if distribution of income towards the non‐accumulated factor of production (labour) retards growth and if capital income taxes are bad instruments to finance investment subsidies. The paper identifies conditions under which the tax scheme is better for growth than other distorting tax schemes. In the model a pro‐labour government acts growth maximizing and distributing income towards labour raises growth. A pro‐capital government's preferred policy is not growth maximizing under the tax scheme, but may generate higher growth than its optimal policy under other tax schemes.     

资源型城市可持续发展的税收政策研究

资源型城市可持续发展面临的问题,主要表现在资源枯竭与城市经济单一,城市管理与地方财政收入减少,资源开发与城市环境质量建设不协调,经济发展与城市基础设施投入成反比,技术落后与人才吸引力差,失业率高与就业压力大,收入水平较低与社会保障工作落后等方面。应建立鼓励资源型城市可持续发展的税收政策体系,进一步完善鼓励资源节约、有利于保护环境、激励技术开发和设备更新、吸引人才、鼓励就业、增强社会保障等多项税收政策。     

The economic consequences of corporate tax rates reductions in the EU: Evidence using a computable general equilibrium model

In a globalised world, governments are eager to attract foreign investors by lowering corporate tax rates. Recent trends point towards a revival of a race to the bottom in corporate income tax (CIT) rates in developed economies. EU countries have been active in this respect. A generalised fall in CIT rate could prove detrimental to tax revenues and trigger increase in other taxes to meet fiscal policy objectives. However, it could also spur investment and growth and prove to be a good fiscal policy strategy if, as a result, the corporate tax base increases. The final economic and fiscal impact of a reduction in CIT rates is therefore unclear. Using a CGE model, we find that uncoordinated tax reforms significantly impact national economies and third‐country effects can be significant when large countries implement CIT rate cuts. Small countries are better off unilaterally reducing their CIT rate at the expense of other EU countries. We find that negative spillovers are mitigated when the country reducing its CIT rate restores its budget balance by cutting either public expenditures or social transfers. A larger degree of non‐EU capital mobility also tends to reduce the negative spillover effects of unilateral CIT rate reductions.     

Kalte Progression wird nach Einführung der Schuldenbremse ein zunehmendes Problem

As taxpayers typically pay relatively little attention to low levels of inflation induced income tax bracket creep, policy makers tend to regularly postpone correction of this problem. Eventually, however, the fiscal illusion fades away, and political pressure for tax relief arises once the cumulative increase of the average tax rate exceeds a critical threshold. Using Germany as an example, it is shown that bracket creep can provoke revenue cycles in public budgets that hinder governments’ compliance with the numerical budget rules. An indexation of the tax tariff, which would provide an automatic correction for bracket creep, could prevent such fluctuations and thus provide a favourable framework for the debt brake.     

Aggregate scale economies, market integration, and optimal welfare state policy

Using a two-sector-two-country model with aggregate scale economies and unionisation, we show that optimal welfare state policy entails positive levels of unemployment benefits under free-trade and capital mobility. In this setting, economic integration does not reduce the revenue raising capacity of governments and thus does not lead to a race-to-the-bottom in social standards. Instead, trade and capital flows interact with welfare state policies in increasing welfare even when each government acts independently (non-cooperatively) in determining its optimal welfare payment. Cooperation is shown to improve upon non-cooperative outcomes by raising both the generosity of the welfare state and aggregate welfare.     

税延政策下不同收入层人群养老保险模式选择——基于累进税制和比例税制的综合实证研究

个税递延型商业养老保险政策的实施将对不同收入层次和不同收入来源人群的养老保险模式选择产生重大影响,而我国现行以累进型为主的个人所得税制度在这一影响发生的过程中发挥着根本性作用.基于这一影响机制,本文重点研究EET模式商业养老保险的受益群体范围,以不同收入水平和不同收入来源的杭州市居民为研究对象,以包含社会养老保险和商业养老保险的动态养老金总替代率期望值为调节目标,构建包含个人所得税的累进税率和比例税率变量的保险精算模型,设计和测算了投保期内的下临界点S1和上临界点S2.在此基础上,从居民购买商业养老保险意愿度和社会公平的角度出发,探讨对两个临界点的进一步调整,分析EET模式商业养老保险受益群体范围以外人群的行为决策,并最终提出政策性建议.     

Tourism Promotion,Increasing Returns and Domestic Welfare

This paper compares the effect of tourism promotion funded by commodity tax and income tax on domestic welfare in an open economy with increasing returns in the tourism and the non‐tourism sector. A promotion may overcome the under‐production of tourism goods through taking account of the implications of increasing returns, but at the same time, the taxation may have an adverse impact on the rest of the economy. Employing a general equilibrium analysis, we find that the cost of tourism promotion overcomes the benefit, reducing local residents' welfare. Furthermore, commodity tax on tourism consumption is relatively more efficient than income tax in a monopolistic competition, with less adverse impact on the variety of non‐tourism goods. We also clarify the condition for deteriorating ‘terms of trade’, which only happens when the country has a small allocation of factor endowments.     

我国流转税与所得税最优比例关系的实证分析

在中国 ,流转税和所得税都与经济增长呈现统计上显著的负相关 ,而与人均GDP以及城乡居民储蓄表现为较好的正相关 ;流转税和所得税分别和国内生产总值建立的三次多项式的回归模型很好地拟合了流转税和所得税的变化轨迹。本文通过 1 992～ 2 0 0 2年税收数据拟合模型 ,分别得到我国经济增长最大化时 ,最优的流转税、所得税占GDP的比率 ,并得出目前的税改重点应为增大所得税的比率的结论。