IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedlrv/y1998ijanp29-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inflation, real interest tax wedges, and capital formation

Author

Listed:
  • William G. Dewald

Abstract

William G. Dewald, director of research for the St. Louis Fed, examines how inflation magnifies the distorting effects of taxation when the tax treatment of interest income and expense is not fully indexed to inflation. The distortion involves a real interest tax wedge which is the difference between the real before-tax interest rate that influences fully taxed investors and the real after-tax interest rate that influences savers. Reducing the real tax wedge by eliminating inflation or indexing would stimulate private saving and nonresidential investment but decrease tax receipts and the tax deductions that subsidize home ownership.

Suggested Citation

  • William G. Dewald, 1998. "Inflation, real interest tax wedges, and capital formation," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jan, pages 29-35.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:y:1998:i:jan:p:29-35
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/98/01/9801wd.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Auerbach, Alan J, 1983. "Taxation, Corporate Financial Policy and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 905-940, September.
    2. Mervyn A. King & Don Fullerton, 1984. "The United Kingdom," NBER Chapters, in: The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany, pages 31-86, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mervyn A. King & Don Fullerton, 1984. "Introduction to "The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany"," NBER Chapters, in: The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Martin S. Feldstein, 1997. "The Costs and Benefits of Going from Low Inflation to Price Stability," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 123-166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Steven M. Fazzari & Benjamin Herzon, "undated". "Capital Gains Taxes and Economic Growth, Effects of a Capital Gains Tax Cut on the Investment Behavior of Firms," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_25, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. Mervyn A. King & Don Fullerton, 1984. "The United States," NBER Chapters, in: The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany, pages 193-267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. William G. Dewald, 1986. "Government Deficits in a Generalized Fisherian Credit Market: Theory with an Application to Indexing Interest Taxation (Déficits publics dans le contexte d'un marché du crédit décrit par un modèl," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 33(2), pages 243-275, June.
    8. Mervyn A. King & Don Fullerton, 1984. "The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number king84-1.
    9. Aaron, Henry J, 1976. "Inflation and the Income Tax," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 193-199, May.
    10. Mervyn A. King & Don Fullerton, 1984. "West Germany," NBER Chapters, in: The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany, pages 149-192, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1973. "Taxation, corporate financial policy, and the cost of capital," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-34, February.
    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. Michael D. Bordo & William G. Dewald, 2001. "Bond Market Inflation Expectations in Industrial Countries: Historical Comparisons," NBER Working Papers 8582, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. William G. Dewald, 1998. "Inflation, real interest tax wedges, and capital formation," Working Papers 1998-005, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    2. Magnus Henrekson & Tino Sanandaji, 2011. "Entrepreneurship and the theory of taxation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 167-185, September.
    3. Luis Alvarez & Vesa Kanniainen & Jan Södersten, 1999. "Why is the Corporation Tax Not Neutral?. Anticipated Tax Reform, Investment Spurts and Corporate Borrowing," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 56(3/4), pages 285-285, July.
    4. Dickescheid, Thomas, 2002. "Steuerwettbewerb und Direktinvestitionen," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 16, number urn:isbn:9783161477348, May.
    5. Chang Woon Nam, 2001. "Effects of Tax Depreciation Rules on Firms' Investment Decisions in an Inflationary Phase: Comparison of Net Present Values in Selected OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 528, CESifo.
    6. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2005. "Taxes, Regulations, and the Value of U.S. and U.K. Corporations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 767-796.
    7. Magnus Henrekson, 2005. "Entrepreneurship: a weak link in the welfare state?," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 14(3), pages 437-467, June.
    8. Lewe, Stefan, 2003. "Wachstumseffiziente Unternehmensbesteuerung," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 20042, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    9. Chatelain, Jean-Bernard & Generale, Andrea & Hernando, Ignacio & Vermeulen, Philip & Von Kalckreuth, Ulf, 2001. "Firm investment and monetary transmission in the euro area," Working Paper Series 112, European Central Bank.
    10. Darrel Cohen & Kevin Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1999. "Inflation and the User Cost of Capital: Does Inflation Still Matter?," NBER Chapters, in: The Costs and Benefits of Price Stability, pages 199-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. von Kalckreuth, Ulf & Hernando, Ignacio & Generale, Andrea & Chatelain, Jean Bernard & Vermeulen, Philip, 2001. "Firm Investment and Monetary Policy Transmission in the Euro Area," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2001,20, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    12. Henrekson, Magnus & Rosenberg, Nathan, 2000. "Incentives for Academic Entrepreneurship and Economic Performance: Sweden and the United States," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 362, Stockholm School of Economics.
    13. Rachel Griffith, 1996. "A note on the taxation of capital income in the Czech Republic and Poland," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 91-103, August.
    14. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Andrea Generale & Ignacio Hernando & Philip Vermeulen & Ulf von Kalckreuth, 2003. "New Findings on Firm Investment and Monetary Policy Transmission in the Euro Area," Post-Print halshs-00119490, HAL.
    15. Jean-Bernard Chatelain, 2003. "Structural modelling of financial constraints on investment: where do we stand?," Chapters, in: Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss (ed.), Firms’ Investment and Finance Decisions, chapter 2, pages 40-58, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Tobias Lindhe & Jan Södersten, 2009. "Dividend Taxation, Share Repurchases and the Equity Trap," CESifo Working Paper Series 2652, CESifo.
    17. Janz, Norbert, 1997. "Robust GMM Estimation of an Euler Equation Investment Model with German Firm Level Panel Data," ZEW Discussion Papers 97-05, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Osmundsen, P. & Hagen, K. P. & Schjelderup, G., 1998. "Internationally mobile firms and tax policy1," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 97-113, June.
    19. Sinn, H.W., 1990. "Taxation And The Birth Of Foreign Subsidiaries," Papers 66, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Discussion Paper.
    20. Jason Cummins & Trevor Harris & Kevin Hassett, 1995. "Accounting Standards, Information Flow, and Firm Investment Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Multinational Corporations, pages 181-224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:fip:fedlrv:y:1998:i:jan:p:29-35. 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: Scott St. Louis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.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.