IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v69y2003i3p560-577.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Later You Pay, the Higher the k

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence S. Seidman
  • Kenneth A. Lewis

Abstract

This paper shows the importance of the age path (life‐cycle timing) of any tax for the accumulation of capital in the economy. Income, consumption, and wage taxes differ in their age paths as well as their incentive effects. This paper studies how the differing age path of each tax affects the capital accumulation of the economy in an empirically calibrated life‐cycle model. We investigate lump‐sum “age” taxes and find in every case that the later the person pays tax, the higher the k of the economy. To analyze the life‐cycle timing effect of conventional transactions‐based taxes (income, consumption, and wage), we replace each tax with a lump‐sum age tax that has the identical age path of tax payments over the life cycle. We find that the timing effect is quantitatively important and often causes the impact of a tax on capital accumulation to be very different from what would be predicted from the incentive effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence S. Seidman & Kenneth A. Lewis, 2003. "The Later You Pay, the Higher the k," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(3), pages 560-577, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:69:y:2003:i:3:p:560-577
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2003.tb00513.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2003.tb00513.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2003.tb00513.x?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. Jane G. Gravelle, 1994. "The Economic Effects of Taxing Capital Income," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262071584, December.
    2. Hubbard, R Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1995. "Precautionary Saving and Social Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 360-399, April.
    3. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 1993. "Consumption Growth, the Interest Rate and Aggregation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 631-649.
    4. Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "Capital Taxation and Accumulation in a Life Cycle Growth Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 533-544, September.
    5. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 339-357, April.
    7. Ihori, Toshihiro, 1987. "Tax reform and intergeneration incidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 377-387, August.
    8. Seidman, Laurence S. & Lewis, Kenneth A., 1999. "The Consumption Tax and the Saving Elasticity," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 1), pages 67-78, March.
    9. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Smetters, Kent A & Walliser, Jan, 1998. "Social Security: Privatization and Progressivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 137-141, May.
    10. Diamond, Peter A., 1970. "Incidence of an interest income tax," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 211-224, September.
    11. Laurence S. Seidman, 1997. "A Progressive Consumption Tax," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 63-84, November.
    12. Seidman, Laurence S. & Lewis, Kenneth A., 1999. "The Consumption Tax and the Saving Elasticity," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(1), pages 67-78, March.
    13. Engen, Eric M. & Gravelle, Jane G. & Smetters, Kent, 1997. "Dynamic Tax Models: Why They Do the Things They Do," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(3), pages 657-82, September.
    14. Evans, Owen J, 1983. "Tax Policy, the Interest Elasticity of Saving, and Capital Accumulation: Numerical Analysis of Theoretical Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 398-410, June.
    15. Christopher D. Carroll, 1997. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 1-55.
    16. R. Glenn Hubbard & Kenneth L. Judd, 1986. "Liquidity Constraints, Fiscal Policy, and Consumption," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 17(1), pages 1-60.
    17. Auerbach, Alan J & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1987. "Evaluating Fiscal Policy with a Dynamic Simulation Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 49-55, May.
    18. Toshihiro Ihori, 1996. "Public Finance in an Overlapping Generations Economy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-38990-8.
    19. Robert B. Barsky & F. Thomas Juster & Miles S. Kimball & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1997. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 537-579.
    20. Engen, Eric M. & Gravelle, Jane G. & Smetters, Kent, 1997. "Dynamic Tax Models: Why They Do the Things They Do," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(3), pages 657-682, September.
    21. Deaton, Angus, 1992. "Understanding Consumption," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288244.
    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. Alan D. Viard, 2007. "The Welfare Effects Of Pay‐As‐You‐Go Retirement Programs: The Role Of Tax And Benefit Timing," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(2), pages 282-292, April.
    2. Alan D. Viard, 2006. "The Welfare Effects of Pay-as-You-Go Retirement Programs," AEI Economics Working Papers 49767, American Enterprise Institute.

    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. Lewis, Kenneth A. & Seidman, Laurence S., 2001. "The Consumption Tax and Transitional Relief," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 99-120, January.
    2. Kenneth A. Lewis & Laurence S. Seidman, 2002. "Funding Social Security: The Transition in a Life-Cycle Growth Model," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 159-180, Spring.
    3. Kenneth A. Lewis & Laurence S. Seidman, 2004. "Managing A Bulge: Policy Options for Social Security," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(4), pages 382-403, July.
    4. Fehr, Hans, 1999. "Welfare Effects of Dynamic Tax Reforms," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 5, number urn:isbn:9783161470165, September.
    5. Douglas W. Elmendorf, "undated". "The Effect of Interest-Rate Changes on Household Saving and Consumption: A Survey," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1996-27, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 10 Dec 2019.
    6. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. John Laitner & Daniel Silverman, 2006. "Consumption, Retirement, and Social Security: Evaluating the Efficiency of Reform with a Life-Cycle Model," Working Papers wp142, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    8. John Laitner & Dan Silverman, 2005. "Estimating Life-Cycle Parameters from Consumption Behavior at Retirement," NBER Working Papers 11163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.
    10. Ventura, Gustavo, 1999. "Flat tax reform: A quantitative exploration," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1425-1458, September.
    11. Bernheim, B. Douglas, 2002. "Taxation and saving," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 18, pages 1173-1249, Elsevier.
    12. Hansen, Hermann-Josef, 1996. "Der Einfluß der Zinsen auf den privaten Verbrauch in Deutschland," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,03, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    13. George R. Zodrow, 2019. "Should Capital Income Be Subject to Consumption-Based Taxation?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 5, pages 131-168, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Attanasio, Orazio P., 1995. "The intertemporal allocation of consumption: theory and evidence," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 39-56, June.
    15. Daria Pignalosa, 2021. "The Euler Equation Approach: Critical Implications of Recent Developments in the Theory of Intertemporal Choice," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 1-43, June.
    16. Roy Cromb & Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, 2004. "Long-term interest rates, wealth and consumption," Bank of England working papers 243, Bank of England.
    17. Laitner, John & Silverman, Dan, 2012. "Consumption, retirement and social security: Evaluating the efficiency of reform that encourages longer careers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(7-8), pages 615-634.
    18. Brendan Epstein & Miles S. Kimball, 2014. "The Decline of Drudgery and the Paradox of Hard Work," International Finance Discussion Papers 1106, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Michael Carlos Best & James S Cloyne & Ethan Ilzetzki & Henrik J Kleven, 2020. "Estimating the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution Using Mortgage Notches," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 656-690.
    20. De Veirman Emmanuel & Dunstan Ashley, 2011. "Time-Varying Returns, Intertemporal Substitution and Cyclical Variation in Consumption," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-41, July.

    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:wly:soecon:v:69:y:2003:i:3:p:560-577. 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://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.