Optimal Taxation in Life-Cycle Economies

We use a very standard life-cycle growth model, in which individuals have a labor-leisure choice in each period of their lives, to prove that an optimizing government will almost always find it optimal to tax or subsidize interest income. The intuition for our result is straightforward. In a life-cycle model the individual's optimal consumption-work plan is almost never constant and an optimizing government almost always taxes consumption goods and labor earnings at different rates over an individual's lifetime. One way to achieve this goal is to use capital and labor income taxes that vary with age. If tax rates cannot be conditioned on age, a nonzero tax on capital income is also optimal, as it can (imperfectly) mimic age-conditioned consumption and labor income tax rates. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E62, H21.     

Capital Controls,Public Debt and Currency Crises

This paper examines the possibility that, contrary to conventional wisdom, capital controls accelerate currency crises. Theoretical analysis shows that capital controls can constitute an additional burden on government budget and so bring forward the onset of crises. Since perfect capital mobility does not occur, domestic interest rates may deviate from world interest rates. High interest rates under capital controls create an additional cost of servicing outstanding domestic public debt, precipitating crises. Even though the government can delay crises with capital controls, welfare may be less than in a situation with perfect capital mobility.     

Environmental Policy, Tax Incidence, and the Cost of Public Funds

This paper studies under what conditions a double dividend may occur in the sense that both environmental quality and employment rise. A simple static general equilibrium model is employed in which tax policy faces the dual task of internalising a negative environmental externality and raising revenue to finance public consumption. The model features a clearing labour market with both labour demand and supply and a fixed factor of production (e.g. capital). Hence, we can study tax incidence and its effect on employment, environmental quality, and the marginal cost of public funds. It is shown for the case of an upward sloping labour supply curve and less than full tax shifting by employers that a shift towards greener preferences cannot yield a double dividend, even if the fixed factor is important. However, if labour supply curve bends backwards, more environmental concern confers a double dividend.     

国外的生态税收政策与我国生态税制建设构想

20世纪90年代以来,一些发达国家为了解决环境问题,纷纷展开生态税收改革,建立起了比较完善的生态税制,使税收在环境保护中发挥了巨大作用.我国应借鉴其先进经验,建立并完善我国的生态税制,以实现经济的可持续发展.     

Wealth Distribution and Optimal Inheritance Taxation in Life-cycle Economies with Intergenerational Transfers

Intergenerational transfers are introduced into a general equilibrium life-cycle model in order to explain observed levels of wealth heterogeneity. In our overlapping generations model, heterogenous agents face uncertain lifetime and leave both accidental and voluntary bequests to their children. Furthermore, agents face stochastic employment opportunities. The model is calibrated with regard to the characteristics of the US economy. Our results indicate that bequests only account for a small proportion of observed wealth heterogeneity. The introduction of an inheritance tax increases both welfare, as measured by the average lifetime utility of a newborn, and equality of the wealth distribution.
JEL classification : D 31; D 91; H 21; C 68; E 21     

Economic Integration and Public Provision of Education

This paper develops a model of fiscal competition in public provision of a private good: education. In this framework, the welfare enhancing effects of public education provision are shown to be reduced by increased student mobility when, like in the EU, countries are unable to set differentiated fees to foreign students. Indeed, the threat of attraction of foreigners who free-ride on the national education system may induce suboptimal levels of public education provision when (price) discrimination is forbidden. Alternatively, countries may try to escape regulation and avoid equal treatment of foreign students. The paper provides some empirical evidence of the existence of a fiscal externality in education at the EU level.     

Taxation of International Private Capital Flows and Securities Transactions in Developing Countries: Do Public Finance Considerations Augment the Macroeconomic Dividends?

This paper examines policies to tax international private capital flows and securities transactions in developing countries. Many recent studies focus on the macroeconomic dividends associated with these policies (namely, their contribution to macroeconomic and financial stability and lengthened investor time horizons). In this paper I explore whether the potential of these policies to raise much‐needed tax revenues in developing countries augments their well‐known macroeconomic benefits. To my knowledge, there has been no effort to examine systematically the public finance issues related to the taxation of international private capital flows or securities transactions in the developing country context. I conclude that the public finance implications of these policies in middle‐income developing countries offers additional support to the macroeconomic case for them. To different degrees, taxation of international private capital flows and securities transactions has the potential to raise modest revenues in middle‐income countries. However, far more important is the potential of these policies to offer valuable macroeconomic dividends on the national level. These national macroeconomic dividends have the potential to bear fruit globally. This is because experiences with financial contagion over the last decade suggest that global financial stability can be enhanced via the promotion of domestic financial stability in developing countries.     

Environmental Policy in Open Economies and Monopolistic Competition

This paper analyses the implications of international trade for non-cooperative environmental policy in the case of local production externalities. A particular focus is on the potential effects of regulations on the variety of goods and the resulting international spillover caused by trade. A tougher domestic standard negatively affects the utility of the households abroad, since such a policy reduces their variety of imports (due to fewer domestic product inventions) or their consumption of each imported brand (due to higher import prices). Ignoring the negative spillover, non-cooperative governments implement inefficiently strict standards in equilibrium. In contrast to this clear-cut inefficiency result, the impact of international trade on the state of the environment is ambiguous.     

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.     

Tax Policy and Human Capital Formation with Public Investment in Education

This paper studies the effects of distortionary taxes and public investment in an endogenous growth OLG model with knowledge transmission. Fiscal policy affects growth in two respects: first, work time reacts to variations of prospective tax rates and modifies knowledge formation; second, public spending enhances labour efficiency but also stimulates physical capital through increased savings. It is shown that Ramsey-optimal policies reduce savings due to high tax rates on young generations, and are not necessarily growth-improving with respect to a pure private system. Non-Ramsey policies that shift the burden on adults are always growth-improving due to crowding-in effects: the welfare of all generations is unambiguously higher with respect to a private system, and there generally exists a continuum of non-optimal tax rates under which long-run growth and welfare are higher than with the Ramsey-optimal policy.     

Preferences for Educational Status,Human Capital Accumulation,and Growth

Using an overlapping generations model in which human capital accumulation has positive external effects on the production of the human capital of future generations, this paper analyzes implications of agents’ having preferences for educational status, represented by human capital holdings relative to the social average. Examining the value and sign of the optimal distortionary tax in the optimal taxation scheme, we analyze the efficiency of the level of human capital accumulation in a decentralized economy. The desire for educational status can compensate for insufficient accumulation of human capital stemming from human capital externalities directed toward future generations.     

依法治税和纳税服务——基于国家税收和公共税收的视角

依法治税和纳税服务是现阶段税收的两大任务。对两者的认识,不能孤立地或对立地看,而是要在社会主义市场经济下的税收应是国家税收和公共税收的统一的视角下加以把握。从这一认识出发,我们就能真正做到坚持依法治税,优化纳税服务,服务科学发展,就能探索出一条中国特色社会主义市场经济条件下的纳税服务新路。     

Proof of global stability,transitional dynamics,and international capital flows in a two-country model of innovation and growth

Global stability properties of dynamic two-country models can be easily studied in the case of perfect international capital flows. With internationally constant relative productivities, balanced-growth path values for factor prices will hold on any path leading to the balanced-growth path unless one country experiences a period of no innovation. Innovation rates converge in the case of perfect international knowledge spillovers but long-run consumption levels and trade patterns are path-dependent. GDP per capita is predicted to converge slowly despite the presence of perfect international capital markets and no explicit inclusion of adjustment costs. The trade balance of the rich country is initially positive but after some time turns into a deficit.     

公共债务对实体经济的传导机制及政策启示

在我国经济发展的“新常态”下,公共债务将如何作用于实体经济的问题值得关注与思考。文章简要描述了国内外公共债务的实践历程及现状,并在对早期西方公共债务理论以及近期相关文献梳理的基础上,关于公共债务对实体经济的传导机制进行系统性分析。研究表明,公共债务分别通过三个层面实现对实体经济的传导：基于宏观层面,通过影响生产要素投入,实现公共债务对实体经济产出的传导;基于微观层面,通过刺激消费与投资,实现公共债务对实体经济总需求的传导;基于金融层面,通过调整流动性和利率,实现公共债务对实体经济运行的传导。因此,应当合理调控公共债务规模,提高公共债务的投资效率,有效地发挥公共债务对实体经济长期发展的推动作用。     

国际资本流动趋势与中国资本循环结构分析

金融全球化是一个动态的发展过程,其程度随着跨国公司的对外资本扩张、机构投资者的投资规模扩大以及各金融主体之间依赖程度的提高而不断加深.在不同发展阶段的国家都不同程度地参与其中,分享金融全球化带来的利益,同时分担由此而产生的风险.文章在对金融全球化与国际资本流动的关系,趋势特征进行概述的基础上,分析了我国国际资本的循环结构并提出建议.     

The Euro and Internal Economic Policy Coordination

This paper reviews, mainly from an institutional angle, the objectives, forms, scope, levels, implementation and challenges involved for internal economic policy coordination after the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999. In particular, it identifies six different aspects of coordination (procedures, exchange of information, analytical framework, monitoring, policy interactions and joint determination of policies) and analyses the rationale for coordination in eight different policy areas. After presenting some of the challenges lying ahead, the paper concludes that although an appropriate institutional framework seems in place, it still has to undergo its baptism of fire.     

公共财政与税费制度改革

我国现行行政收费存在诸多问题，已给经济和社会发展带来了严重影响。从公共财政角度分析税费制度改革的理论依据、必要性及相关实施措施，加快推进税费制度改革步伐，对于规范公共财政收入形式，健全公共财政体系，促进经济和社会可持续发展具有十分重要的意义。     

国债规模的均衡数量及优化

笔者基于世代交叠模型,假定政府执行赤字预算体制,在市场结清的均衡状态下得到了确定国债规模与私人资本规模之比值的解析式。通过模拟发现税率、基本财政支出率、产出关于私人资本的弹性等是决定该比值大小的主要因素。     

Public Investment and Income Taxation: Redistribution vs. Productive Performance

This paper deals with government investment in a static two-type self-selection model of optimum income taxation. It is shown that the second-best investment rule is consistent with efficient production, provided that public investment has no influence on relative factor prices. Otherwise, however, redistributive income taxation implies that optimal investment expenditures exceed (or fall below) the efficient level as long as they raise (or decrease) the wage rate of the unskilled individuals relative to the wage rate of the skilled individuals.     

国际资本流动对房地产价格的影响——基于中国的实证检验:1998-2006

Taking the inflation into consideration and making use of the quarter data of the actual foreign investment, housing and land prices in China from 1998 to 2006, this paper examines the relationship between housing prices and international capital flows using Error Correction Model (ECM) and Granger causality test. Results show that in the short run, the increase of housing prices attracts the inflow of foreign capitals; in the long run, foreign capitals help to boost the rise of housing prices. Therefore, at present, Chinese government must impose effective restrictions on the flow of foreign capital into the real estate market. __________ Translated from Caijing Wenti Yanjiu 财经问题研究 (Research on Financial and Economic Issues), 2007, (3): 55–61