IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0911.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Comparison of Methodologies in Empirical General Equilibrium Models of Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Don Fullerton
  • Yolanda K. Henderson
  • John B. Shoven

Abstract

Computational general equilibrium models have proven useful in the area of long run analysis of alternative tax policies. A sizable number of studies have been completed which examine policies such as a value-added tax, corporate and personal income tax integration, a consumption or expenditure tax, housing subsidies, and inflation indexation.. This paper reviews the methodologies used in these models. We focus on eight specific models and review in turn: levels of disaggregation, specification of the foreign sector, financial modeling, the measurement of effective tax rates, heterogeneity and imperfect mobility, factor supply, treatment of the government budget, and technical issues associated with implementation. The paper includes some new experiments in connection with simulations of integration of the personal and corporate income tax systems in the United States. We compare the resulting welfare gains in models with different levels of disaggregation, and we discuss alternative justifications for specific disaggregations. We also examine the sensitivity of results to alternative specifications of households' endowments of labor and leisure. Our survey underscores the importance of the assumed elasticities of labor supply with respect to the net of tax wage, and of saving with respect to the net of tax rate of return. Unfortunately, these are also parameters for which there is not a consensus in the economics profession. The survey finds that there are several aspects of modeling that are especially ripe for further progress: the roles of government and business financial decisions, the dynamics of a life-cycle approach, and the measurement of incentive tax and transfer rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Don Fullerton & Yolanda K. Henderson & John B. Shoven, 1982. "A Comparison of Methodologies in Empirical General Equilibrium Models of Taxation," NBER Working Papers 0911, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0911
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0911.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ballentine, J Gregory, 1978. "The Incidence of a Corporation Income Tax in a Growing Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 863-875, October.
    2. Alan J. Auerbach & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1983. "National Savings, Economic Welfare, and the Structure of Taxation," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral Simulation Methods in Tax Policy Analysis, pages 459-498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ballentine, J Gregory & Eris, Ibrahim, 1975. "On the General Equilibrium Analysis of Tax Incidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(3), pages 633-644, June.
    4. Robin Boadway, 1979. "Long-run Tax Incidence: A Comparative Dynamic Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 46(3), pages 505-511.
    5. J. Gregory Ballentine & Charles E. McLure, Jr., 1980. "Taxation and Corporate Financial Policy," NBER Working Papers 0243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. J. Gregory Ballentine & Charles E. McLure, 1980. "Taxation and Corporate Financial Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(2), pages 351-372.
    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. Giesecke, James A. & Nhi, Tran Hoang, 2010. "Modelling value-added tax in the presence of multi-production and differentiated exemptions," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 156-173, April.
    2. Holmoy, Erling & Vennemo, Haakon, 1995. "A general equilibrium assessment of a suggested reform in capital income taxation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 531-556, December.
    3. Bernd Mettelsiefen, 1991. "Dynamic Effects of Tax Policy. Instruments in West Germany," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 127(II), pages 141-179, June.
    4. Carbone, Jared C. & Smith, V. Kerry, 2008. "Evaluating policy interventions with general equilibrium externalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1254-1274, June.
    5. Joel Slemrod, 1984. "A General Equilibrium Model of Taxation That Uses Micro-Unit Data: Withan Application to the Impact of Instituting a Flat-Rate Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 1461, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Fullerton, Don & Henderson, Yolanda Kodrzycki, 1985. "Long-run Effects of the Accelerated Cost Recovery System," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 363-372, August.

    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. Charles E. McLure Jr., 1981. "The Elusive Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax: The State Case," Public Finance Review, , vol. 9(4), pages 395-413, October.
    2. Joel Slemrod, 1982. "Down-Payment Constraints: Tax Policy Effects in a Growing Economy With Rental and Owner-Occupied Housing," Public Finance Review, , vol. 10(2), pages 193-217, April.
    3. Timothy J. Goodspeed & Daphne A. Kenyon, 1993. "The Nonprofit Sector's Capital Constraint: Does It Provide a Rationale for the Tax Exemption Granted To Nonprofit Firms?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 21(4), pages 415-433, October.
    4. Nadeau, Serge J., 1988. "A Model to Measure the Effects of Taxes on the Real and Financial Decisions of the Firm," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 41(4), pages 467-481, December.
    5. Thomas K. Bauer & Tanja Kasten & Lars-H. R. Siemers, 2017. "Business Taxation and Wages: Redistribution and Asymmetric Effects," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201732, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    6. Serge Nadeau & Robert P. Strauss, 1991. "Tax Policies and the Real and Financial Decisions of the Firm: the Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986," Public Finance Review, , vol. 19(3), pages 251-292, July.
    7. Mukoyama, Toshihiko, 2021. "MIT shocks imply market incompleteness," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    8. Larch, Martin, 1993. "Dynamically Inefficient Equilibria in the Auerbach-Kotlikoff Model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 159-172.
    9. Jennifer C. Gravelle, 2010. "Corporate Tax Incidence: Review of General Equilibrium Estimates and Analysis: Working Paper 2010-03," Working Papers 21486, Congressional Budget Office.
    10. Hubbard, R. Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1994. "The importance of precautionary motives in explaining individual and aggregate saving," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 59-125, June.
    11. Kudła Janusz & Kopczewska Katarzyna & Kocia Agata & Kruszewski Robert & Walczyk Konrad, 2018. "Dynamic Fiscal Solvency with Consumption and Capital Taxes," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 5(52), pages 96-108, January.
    12. Basil Dalamagas, 2011. "A Dynamic Approach to Tax Evasion," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(2), pages 309-326, March.
    13. Frenkel, Jacob A & Razin, Assaf, 1989. "International Effects of Tax Reforms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(395), pages 38-58, Supplemen.
    14. Miguel-Angel Lopez-Garcia, 1997. "When) is Consumption Taxation Equivalent to Wage Taxation ?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 25(1), pages 83-101, January.
    15. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    16. Clemens Fuest & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2018. "Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 393-418, February.
    17. Fullerton, Don & Shoven, John B. & Whalley, John, 1983. "Replacing the U.S. income tax with a progressive consumption tax : A sequenced general equilibrium approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 3-23, February.
    18. Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal redistributive capital taxation in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 423-453, September.
    19. Wildasin, David E., 2003. "Fiscal competition in space and time," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2571-2588, October.
    20. Alfredo M. Pereira, 1995. "Equal Yield Tax Alternatives and Government Deficits," Public Finance Review, , vol. 23(1), pages 40-71, January.

    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:nbr:nberwo:0911. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.