IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v13y1999i2p167-188.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Three Sides of Harberger Triangles

Author

Listed:
  • James R. Hines

Abstract

Harberger triangles are used to calculate the efficiency costs of taxes, government regulations, monopolistic practices, and various other market distortions. This paper considers the historical development of Harberger triangles, the associated theoretical controversies, and the contribution of Harberger triangles to subsequent empirical work and theories of market imperfections. Prior to the publication of Arnold Harberger's papers, economists very rarely estimated deadweight losses. The empirical deadweight loss literature expanded greatly since the 1960s, making such estimation now quite common. Meanwhile, critical evaluation of deadweight loss estimates led to new theories of rent-seeking and other inefficiencies of economies with multiple distortions.

Suggested Citation

  • James R. Hines, 1999. "Three Sides of Harberger Triangles," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 167-188, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:13:y:1999:i:2:p:167-188
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.13.2.167
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.13.2.167
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. J. Corlett & D. C. Hague, 1953. "Complementarity and the Excess Burden of Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 21(1), pages 21-30.
    2. Charles L. Ballard & John B. Shoven & John Whalley, 1982. "The Welfare Cost of Distortions in the United States Tax System: A General Equilibrium Approach," NBER Working Papers 1043, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Breslaw, Jon A & Smith, J Barry, 1995. "A Simple and Efficient Method for Estimating the Magnitude and Precision of Welfare Changes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(3), pages 313-327, July-Sept.
    4. Bovenberg, A Lans & de Mooij, Ruud A, 1997. "Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 252-253, March.
    5. Harvey S. Rosen, 1997. "The Fiscal Behavior of State and Local Governments," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1326.
    6. Ballard, Charles L. & Fullerton, Don & Shoven, John B. & Whalley, John, 2009. "A General Equilibrium Model for Tax Policy Evaluation," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226036335, July.
    7. de Bovenberg, A Lans & Mooij, Ruud A, 1994. "Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 1085-1089, September.
    8. Auerbach, Alan J., 1985. "The theory of excess burden and optimal taxation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-127, Elsevier.
    9. Vartia, Yrjo O, 1983. "Efficient Methods of Measuring Welfare Change and Compensated Income in Terms of Ordinary Demand Functions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(1), pages 79-98, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Auerbach, Alan J. & Hines, James Jr., 2002. "Taxation and economic efficiency," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 21, pages 1347-1421, Elsevier.
    2. Lawrence H. Goulder & Roberton C. Williams III, 1999. "The Usual Excess-Burden Approximation Usually Doesn't Come Close," NBER Working Papers 7034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Seung-Rae Kim, 2002. "Environmental Taxes and Economic Welfare: The Welfare Cost of Gasoline Taxation in the U.S. 1959-1999," Public Economics 0201003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 May 2004.
    4. Inge Mayeres, 1999. "The Distributional Impacts of Policies for the Control of Transport Externalities.An Applied General Equilibrium Model," Working Papers 1999.8, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Eskeland, Gunnar S., 2000. "Environmental protection and optimal taxation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2510, The World Bank.
    6. C. Benassi & E. Randon, 2015. "Optimal Commodity Taxation and Income Distribution," Working Papers wp1001, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    7. Eskeland, Gunnar S., 2000. "Public expenditures and environmental protection : when is the cost of funds irrelevant?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2507, The World Bank.
    8. Louis Kaplow, 2006. "Optimal Control of Externalities in the Presence of Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 12339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Pascal Lavergne & Vincent Réquilllart & Michel Simioni, 1998. "Pertes de bien-être et pouvoir de marché dans l'agro-alimentaire français," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 135(4), pages 77-86.
    10. Aradhyula, Satheesh Venkata, 1989. "Policy structure, output supply and input demand for US crops," ISU General Staff Papers 198901010800009909, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    11. Don Fullerton & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2002. "Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, and Pre-existing Distortions," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 26, pages 504-522, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2005. "How much do we care about absolute versus relative income and consumption?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 405-421, March.
    13. Don Fullerton & Inkee Hong & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2001. "A Tax on Output of the Polluting Industry Is Not a Tax on Pollution: The Importance of Hitting the Target," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral and Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy, pages 13-44, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Budzinski, Oliver, 2002. "Ecological Tax Reform and Unemployment," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-251, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    15. Fischer, Carolyn, 2011. "Market power and output-based refunding of environmental policy revenues," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 212-230, January.
    16. Kverndokk,S. & Rosendahl,E., 2000. "CO2 mitigation costs and ancillary benefits in the Nordic countries, the UK and Ireland : a survey," Memorandum 34/2000, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    17. Dieckhoener, Caroline & Hecking, Harald, 2012. "Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curves of the Residential Heating Market – a Microeconomic Approach," EWI Working Papers 2012-16, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    18. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen & Bharvirkar, Ranjit & Paul, Anthony, 2001. "The Effect of Allowance Allocation on the Cost of Carbon Emission Trading," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-30-, Resources for the Future.
    19. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W.H. Parry & Roberton C. Williams III & Dallas Burtraw, 2002. "The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Instruments for Environmental Protection in a Second-Best Setting," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 27, pages 523-554, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Bas (B.) Jacobs & Rick (F.) van der Ploeg, 2017. "Should Pollution Taxes Be Targeted At Income Redistribution?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-070/VI, Tinbergen Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

    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:aea:jecper:v:13:y:1999:i:2:p:167-188. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.