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Unequal wages for equal utilities

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  • Helmuth Cremer
  • Pierre Pestieau
  • Maria Racionero

Abstract

When educational policy is supplemented by a redistributive income tax, and when individualsdiffer in their ability to benefit from education, the optimal policy is typically rather regressive.Resources are concentrated on the most able individuals in order to get a "cake" as big aspossible to share among individuals through income taxation. In this paper we put forwardanother reason to push for regressive education. It is not linked to heterogeneity in innate ability to benefit from education but to pervasive non-convexities that arise in the optimal income tax problem when individual productivities are endogenous. For simplicity we assume a lineareducation technology and a given total education budget. To give the equal wage outcome thebest chance to emerge, we also assume that individuals have identical learning abilities.Nevertheless, it turns out that in the first-best wage inequality is always preferable to wageequality. Even more surprisingly, this conclusion remains valid in the second-best (unless adhoc restriction on the feasible degree of a wage differentiation are imposed). This is in spite ofthe fact that wage equalization would eliminate any need for distortionary income taxation.
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  • Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau & Maria Racionero, 2011. "Unequal wages for equal utilities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 383-398, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:18:y:2011:i:4:p:383-398
    DOI: 10.1007/s10797-011-9163-2
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    Cited by:

    1. Bastani, Spencer & Blumkin, Tomer & Micheletto, Luca, 2015. "Optimal wage redistribution in the presence of adverse selection in the labor market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 41-57.
    2. Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau & Kerstin Roeder, 2015. "United but (un)equal: human capital, probability of divorce, and the marriage contract," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 195-217, January.
    3. Efthymios Athanasiou, 2012. "Endogenous productivity and equality of opportunity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(1), pages 59-89, June.
    4. Helmuth Cremer & Philippe Donder & Pierre Pestieau, 2010. "Education and social mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(4), pages 357-377, August.
    5. Jan ŠIROKÝ & Anna KOVÁŘOVÁ & Kateřina RANDOVÁ, 2012. "The role of the value added tax on foodstuffs in the consumer basket," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 58(8), pages 387-395.
    6. Leung, Tin Cheuk & Yazici, Hakki, 2011. "On the Optimal Skill Distribution in a Mirrleesian Economy," MPRA Paper 32596, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Eric Stephens, 2012. "Teach a man to fish? Education vs. optimal taxation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(4), pages 1700-1727, November.
    8. Huang Minan & Chen Bingzheng & Deng Yinglu, 2013. "Welfare Effects of Developing the Reverse Mortgage Market in China: An Individual and Social Perspective," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 27-55, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education policy; Optimal income taxation; Equal opportunity; H20; I20; D63;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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