通货膨胀时期的税收效应解析

通货膨胀是一种经济现象,一旦通货膨胀发生,它会对经济生活产生多方面的消极影响,对政府税收产生多重效应,使政府的所得课税、产品课税、储蓄课税等,都会产生通货膨胀效应,导致税收分配格局的改变.当通货膨胀发生时,政府必须调整相应的税收政策,消除通货膨胀对税收的影响,这是建设和谐社会的客观要求.     

The Optimal Perception of Inflation Persistence is Zero

This study shows that, in an economy with inflation persistence, it is always welfare improving for a central bank that operates under discretion to behave as if there were no inflation persistence. Under reasonable assumptions about inflation persistence, all of the inefficiency associated with discretionary policymaking is then removed.     

The Optimal Asymptotic Income Tax Rate

This paper shows that a policy maker needs only two types of information to set the optimal income tax rate at the top: a measure of labor supply elasticity and the shape of skills distribution. We find that the asymptotic tax rate is not affected by the degree of inequality aversion as long as the marginal utility of consumption converges to zero. By using empirically plausible estimates for the compensated labor supply elasticity and the shape of skills distribution, we find that the optimal marginal tax rate at the top should be between 33% and 60%, which is in line with the existing rates in the real world.     

中国经济的最优通货膨胀

制定一个适宜的长期通胀目标对于提高社会经济福利具有重要意义。本文构建了一个代表性的DSGE模型,用贝叶斯方法对模型进行了参数估计,并估算了在各种不同的货币政策规则下,中国经济所应选择的最优通胀目标。研究结果表明从短期看3%左右的通胀目标是最优的,而从中长期看低通胀目标(0.5%—1%)是最优的。本文的政策建议是盯住低通胀目标有利于长期社会经济福利,管住货币,看紧通胀仍应是中国央行货币政策制定的首要考量。     

The Optimal Rate of Inflation When Capital is Taxed

A simple ‘AK’ model of growth is developed in which consumers hold money to reduce transaction costs associated with their purchases of both consumption and investment goods. The government is constrained to choosing between an income tax and inflation as means of financing its expenditure. As a result, there is no presumption in favor of Friedman’s (1969) rule. Numerical simulations are conducted and generally find a low to moderate welfare maximizing rate of inflation.     

Milton Friedman and the Genesis of Inflation Tax Analysis

This essay argues that Milton Friedman??s initial exposition of the inflation tax on money was flawed. Ironically, the flaw traces to Friedman??s attempt to shoehorn the tax into a Keynesian (circa 1936) setting. While the subsequent inflation tax literature has never acknowledged the flaw, it also never utilized a Keynesian setting to exposit the tax.     

税制改革是抑制当前通胀风险的必然选择

当前,中国经济增长面临着内、外严峻挑战并将通过通货膨胀的形式表现出来,研究物价稳定条件下的经济增长,探讨实现经济增长与物价稳定的经济政策协调问题,税收政策正是其中最为重要的一方面.税收制度改革是抑制通货膨胀的有效途径,借鉴国外税制改革对抑制通货膨胀的正反经验,并结合我国当前制度及政策环境,对我国相应税制改革安排进行理论探讨.     

效率与公平兼顾的最优所得税:理论框架及最优税率估计

最优所得税主要探讨税收如何兼顾公平与效率问题,以及给定公平偏好程度下,如何确定最优边际税率水平。即使在崇尚罗尔斯社会福利函数的社会里,政府同时兼顾再分配和财政收入目标的基础上,只要略加考虑税收对劳动供给的效应,哪怕是微弱的考虑和兼顾,最高边际税率都不会达到100%。而且,借鉴斯特恩最优线性所得税模型及美国个人所得税制度,估计我国现行个人所得税最高边际税率还可以适当降低到36%左右。     

对不恰当理解最优商品税理论的一点纠正

国内外部分主流公共经济学文献将最优商品税问题归结为:政府在其预算约束下如何选择最优商品税结构以使社会福利最大化,进而在严格的生产技术假设条件下求解上述问题,并得出结论:最优税制应使对每种商品的补偿需求均以税前状态的同等比例下降.然而,文章通过对单个消费者条件下最优商品税理论的重新梳理发现:(1)最优税制应使得对每种商品或服务的补偿需求均以税后状态的同等比例变化;(2)这种变化不是消费者补偿需求的实际变化;(3)结论(1)的成立是建立在小额税收的基础上,根据结论(1)提供税制改革的政策建议应谨慎.     

Optimal Inflation Contracts and Inflation Targets with Uncertain Central Bank Preferences: Accountability Through Independence?

This paper examines some problems which arise when monetary policy is delegated to an independent central bank and where the central bank's preferences are unknown. Two key conclusions emerge from the paper. First, even with optimal targets or contracts, central bank independence may not always be desirable because central banks may have distorted preferences relative to society. Second, if the delegation solution is preferable, and the independent central bank responds to information about supply shocks, the central bank may be made more accountable by allowing it to set its own inflation targets, i.e. by making it goal-independent     

The Welfare Effect on Different Income Groups of Indirect Tax Changes and Inflation in New Zealand

This paper has two main aims, both associated with measuring the welfare effects of price changes. First, it examines the distributional effects of the change in the indirect tax system in New Zealand during the mid-1980s. Second, it examines the distributional impact of recent inflation in New Zealand. The results confirm those of previous studies which found that indirect taxes in New Zealand did not have a substantially larger impact on low income groups compared with high income groups. Furthermore, the introduction of the goods and services tax does not appear to be regressive. However, recent price changes in New Zealand have had a higher impact on the high income groups, although this tendency is quite small.     

The Optimal Environmental Tax and Urban Unemployment in an Open Economy

This paper investigates how a rise in the urban pollution tax rate may affect urban unemployment and welfare in a small open Harris–Todaro (HT) model with intersectoral capital mobility. First, by formulating urban pollution as a dirty input in manufacturing, we find that an increase in the urban pollution tax rate can increase the level of urban unemployment even with intersectoral capital mobility. That is, the optimistic finding by Rapanos (2007 ) that environmental protection policy reduces urban unemployment in the long run does not always hold. Second, the (sub)optimal pollution tax rate under urban unemployment is higher than the Pigouvian tax rate (the marginal damage of pollution). This result opposes those of Beladi and Chao (2006 ) for a closed HT economy and that of Tsakiris et al. (2008 ) for an open HT economy with sector‐specific capital.     

On the Use of the Inflation Tax When Nondistortionary Taxes Are Available

Using a pure-exchange overlapping generations model in which money is valued because of a legal restriction, we show the following: (a) a benevolent government may make some use of the inflation tax in conjunction with a lump-sum tax on the young but not if lump-sum taxes on the old are available, and (b) the welfare-maximizing monetary policy may deviate from the Friedman rule (contract the money supply so as to equate the real return on money and other competing stores of value) in either case. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E58, E63, H21.     

Optimal Income Tax Enforcement under Prospect Theory

Prospect theory (PT) has become the most accepted alternative to expected utility theory (EUT) as a theory of decision under uncertainty. This paper extends the existing literature on efficient tax and audit schemes, by answering the question as to just how progressive an efficient tax system can be when assuming that taxpayers behave in line with the tenets of PT. Under reasonable assumptions regarding the reference income and the value function of taxpayers, we show that the efficient tax schedule is regressive while audit probabilities are nonincreasing in the declared income. These results are consistent with the previous literature on EUT.     

Optimal Tax Policy under Environmental Quality Competition

This paper studies the socially optimal emission and commodity tax policy when consumers are willing to pay a price-premium for environmentally friendlier variants of a commodity vertically differentiated in environmental quality. The first-best levels of quality can be obtained by a combination of a uniform ad valorem tax and an emission tax (or a subsidy for buying green products). The first-best emission tax is higher than the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality. Regardless of environmentally conscious consumers, if only one instrument is available, the second-best emission tax is equal to the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality. A uniform ad valorem tax increases welfare only if the social valuation of the positive externality associated with average environmental quality is low enough.     

Capital Trading,Stock Trading,and the Inflation Tax on Equity

A market for used capital goods, or financial instruments that represent the ownership of the used capital goods, induces inflation taxes on wealth and on the nominal income flows that they provide. This paper explicitly introduces trading in either used capital goods or financial instruments into the standard stochastic growth model with money and production. These two monetary economies are equivalent. The value of the firm is equal to the firm's capital stock divided by inflation. The resulting asset-pricing conditions indicate that the effect of inflation on asset returns differs from the effects found in the literature by the addition of a significant wealth tax. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E0, E4, E5.