IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v67y2020i5p455-461.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can taxes raise output and reduce inequality? The case of lobbying

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus Prettner
  • Davud Rostam‐Afschar

Abstract

One of the key institutional elements for reducing inequality is the tax and transfer system. However, economists and policymakers usually view high taxes as detrimental to economic growth. We isolate one important mechanism by which higher taxes reduce inequality and raise per capita gross domestic product (GDP) at the same time. This mechanism operates in the presence of unproductive lobbying. Higher taxes induce a reallocation from lobbying toward production. This raises overall output and reduces the consumption gap between those who benefit from lobbying and those who bear its negative effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus Prettner & Davud Rostam‐Afschar, 2020. "Can taxes raise output and reduce inequality? The case of lobbying," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(5), pages 455-461, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:67:y:2020:i:5:p:455-461
    DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12248
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjpe.12248?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2014. "Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 348-353, May.
    2. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2016. "The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 205-240, October.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2018. "The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1488-1542, June.
    4. Matthew Weinzierl, 2018. "Revisiting the Classical View of Benefit‐based Taxation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 37-64, July.
    5. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00944873 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    7. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2014. "Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 230-271, February.
    8. Richard A. Posner, 1975. "The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 45-65, Springer.
    9. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    10. Prettner, Klaus & Strulik, Holger, 2020. "Innovation, automation, and inequality: Policy challenges in the race against the machine," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 249-265.
    11. Casey Rothschild & Florian Scheuer, 2016. "Optimal Taxation with Rent-Seeking," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1225-1262.
    12. Michael P. Keane, 2011. "Labor Supply and Taxes: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 961-1075, December.
    13. Saibal KAR & Biswajit MANDAL & Sugata MARJIT & Vivekananda MUKHERJEE, 2020. "Seeking Rent In The Informal Sector," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 91(1), pages 151-164, March.
    14. Iqbal, Nasir & Daly, Vince, 2014. "Rent seeking opportunities and economic growth in transitional economies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 16-22.
    15. Dutta, Nabamita & Kar, Saibal & Roy, Sanjukta, 2013. "Corruption and persistent informality: An empirical investigation for India," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 357-373.
    16. Benjamin B. Lockwood & Charles G. Nathanson & E. Glen Weyl, 2017. "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1635-1682.
    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. Óscar Afonso & Pedro G. Lima & Tiago Sequeira, 2022. "The effects of automation and lobbying in wage inequality: a directed technical change model with routine and non-routine tasks," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 1467-1497, November.
    2. Khawaja A. Mamun & Lorán Chollete, 2023. "Individual self‐control and collective outcomes: An examination of cigarette addiction and taxes," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(1), pages 1-18, February.

    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. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2020. "Taxation and the Superrich," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 189-211, August.
    2. Eric Weyl & Charles Nathanson & Ben Lockwood, 2013. "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent," 2013 Meeting Papers 56, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Nolan, Brian & Richiardi, Matteo & Valenzuela, Luis, 2018. "The Drivers of Inequality in Rich Countries," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-15, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    4. Casey Rothschild & Florian Scheuer, 2014. "A Theory of Income Taxation under Multidimensional Skill Heterogeneity," NBER Working Papers 19822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Morten Nyborg Støstad & Frank Cowell, 2021. "Inequality as an Externality: Consequences for Tax Design," PSE Working Papers halshs-03495989, HAL.
    6. Lankisch, Clemens & Prettner, Klaus & Prskawetz, Alexia, 2019. "How can robots affect wage inequality?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 161-169.
    7. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Optimal Labor Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 18521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2019. "Between Communism and Capitalism: Long-Term Inequality in Poland, 1892- 2015," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02876995, HAL.
    9. Paweł Doligalski & Abdoulaye Ndiaye & Nicolas Werquin, 2023. "Redistribution with Performance Pay," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(2), pages 371-402.
    10. Louis Kaplow, 2019. "Market Power and Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 25578, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Lawson, Nicholas, 2019. "Taxing the job creators: Efficient taxation with bargaining in hierarchical firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-25.
    12. Damián Vergara, 2022. "Do policies and institutions matter for pre-tax income inequality? Cross-country evidence," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(1), pages 30-52, February.
    13. Florian Scheuer & Iván Werning, 2017. "The Taxation of Superstars," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 211-270.
    14. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2023. "Optimal Taxation and Other-Regarding Preferences," Working Papers in Economics 837, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Omer Faruk Koru, 2019. "Automation and Top Income Inequality," PIER Working Paper Archive 19-004, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. Gasteiger, Emanuel & Prettner, Klaus, 2022. "Automation, Stagnation, And The Implications Of A Robot Tax," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 218-249, January.
    17. Charles I. Jones & Jihee Kim, 2018. "A Schumpeterian Model of Top Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1785-1826.
    18. Bukowski, Pawel & Novokmet, Filip, 2019. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892-2015," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102834, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Bukowski, Pawel & Novokmet, Filip, 2019. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892-2015," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102814, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2023. "Optimal Taxation and Other-Regarding Preferences," Umeå Economic Studies 1016, Umeå University, Department of Economics.

    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:bla:scotjp:v:67:y:2020:i:5:p:455-461. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.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.