IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejmac/v14y2014i1p26n16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal capital-income taxation in a model with credit frictions

Author

Listed:
  • Abo-Zaid Salem

    (Economics, Texas Tech University, 248 Holden Hall, P.O. Box 41014, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA)

Abstract

The optimality of the long-run capital-income tax rate is revisited in a simple neoclassical growth model with credit frictions. Firms pay their factors of production in advance, which requires borrowing at the beginning of the period. Borrowing, in turn, is constrained by the value of collateral that they own at the beginning of the period, leading to inefficiently low amounts of capital and labor. In this environment, the optimal capital-income tax in the steady state is non zero. Specifically, the quantitative analyses show that the capital-income tax is negative and, therefore, the distortions stemming from the credit friction are offset by subsidizing capital. However, when the government cannot distinguish between capital-income and profits, the capital-income tax is positive as the government levies the same tax rate on both sources of income. These results stand in contrast to the celebrated result of zero capital-income taxation of Judd (Judd, K. 1985. “Redistributive Taxation in a Simple Perfect Foresight Model.” Journal of Public Economics 28: 59–83.) and Chamley (Chamley, C. 1986. “Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives.” Econometrica 54: 607–622.).

Suggested Citation

  • Abo-Zaid Salem, 2014. "Optimal capital-income taxation in a model with credit frictions," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-26, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:26:n:16
    DOI: 10.1515/bejm-2013-0112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bejm-2013-0112
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/bejm-2013-0112?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campello, Murillo & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2010. "The real effects of financial constraints: Evidence from a financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 470-487, September.
    2. Abo-Zaid, Salem, 2012. "Optimal labor-income tax volatility with credit frictions," MPRA Paper 47612, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Jun 2013.
    3. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    4. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    5. Thomas Chaney & David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2012. "The Collateral Channel: How Real Estate Shocks Affect Corporate Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2381-2409, October.
    6. Juan Carlos Conesa & Sagiri Kitao & Dirk Krueger, 2009. "Taxing Capital? Not a Bad Idea after All!," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 25-48, March.
    7. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2009. "How much inflation is necessary to grease the wheels?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 365-377, April.
    8. Harding, John P. & Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Sirmans, C.F., 2007. "Depreciation of housing capital, maintenance, and house price inflation: Estimates from a repeat sales model," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 193-217, March.
    9. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    10. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç‐Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2005. "Financial and Legal Constraints to Growth: Does Firm Size Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 137-177, February.
    11. Guo, Jang-Ting & Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal taxation of capital income with imperfectly competitive product markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 967-995, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Corina Boar & Matthew P. Knowles, 2022. "Optimal Taxation of Risky Entrepreneurial Capital," NBER Working Papers 29961, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Pierre-Edouard Collignon, 2021. "No Regret Fiscal Reforms," Working Papers 2021-20, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    3. Corina Boar & Matthew Knowles, 2020. "Entrepreneurship, Agency Frictions and Redistributive Capital Taxation," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 202004, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abo-Zaid, Salem, 2015. "Optimal long-run inflation with occasionally binding financial constraints," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 18-42.
    2. Biljanovska, Nina & Vardoulakis, Alexandros P., 2019. "Capital taxation with heterogeneous discounting and collateralized borrowing," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 97-109.
    3. Günther Rehme, 2023. "Capital depreciation allowances, redistributive taxation, and economic growth," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(1), pages 168-195, February.
    4. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & James R. Malley & Wei Jiang, 2011. "The distributional consequences of tax reforms under market distortions," Working Papers 2011_21, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    5. Long Xin & Pelloni Alessandra, 2011. "Welfare improving taxation on savings in a growth model," wp.comunite 0091, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    6. Angelopoulos, Konstantinos & Fernandez, Bernardo X. & Malley, James R., 2010. "The Distributional Consequences of Supply-Side Reforms in General Equilibrium," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-85, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    7. Chen, Been-Lon & Lu, Chia-Hui, 2013. "Optimal factor tax incidence in two-sector human capital-based models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 75-94.
    8. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    9. Wei Jiang, 2014. "Optimal taxation and labour wedge in models with equilibrium unemployment," Studies in Economics 1407, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    10. Chahrour, Ryan & Svec, Justin, 2014. "Optimal capital taxation and consumer uncertainty," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 178-198.
    11. George Economides & Anastasios Rizos, 2021. "Optimal taxation: full-commitment versus time-consistent equilibrium," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 717-753, August.
    12. George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos & Anastasios Rizos, 2020. "Optimal tax policy under tax evasion," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(2), pages 339-362, April.
    13. Abo-Zaid, Salem, 2013. "Optimal monetary policy and downward nominal wage rigidity in frictional labor markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 345-364.
    14. Günther Rehme, 2023. "Investment subsidies and redistributive capital income taxation in a neoclassical growth model," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 988-1012, October.
    15. Shahar Rotberg, 2022. "The Implications Of Housing For The Design Of Wealth Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(1), pages 125-159, February.
    16. Alberto Petrucci, 2011. "Nonoptimality of the Friedman Rule with Capital Income Taxation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 163-183, February.
    17. Chia-Hui Lu & Been-Lon Chen, 2015. "Optimal Capital Taxation in a Neoclassical Growth Model," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(2), pages 257-269, April.
    18. Nina Biljanovska & Alexandros Vardoulakis, 2017. "Capital Taxation with Heterogeneous Discounting and Collateralized Borrowing," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-053, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Abo-Zaid, Salem, 2012. "Optimal labor-income tax volatility with credit frictions," MPRA Paper 39083, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Long, Xin & Pelloni, Alessandra, 2017. "Factor income taxation in a horizontal innovation model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 137-159.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:26:n:16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.