IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/92954.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Axiomatic Proof of Mirrlees' Formula

Author

Listed:
  • Homburg, Stefan

Abstract

Mirrlees' optimal income tax formula has never been proven rigorously, and it is hard to understand it in economic terms. We prove an analogous formula for an economy with finitely many persons. This is easy and allows a simple economic interpretation. Thereafter, Mirrlees' original formula is derived by means of a limit theorem. The analysis also clarifies the discussion between Revesz and Saez published as "Communications" below in this issue of PF/FP. It shows which formula is correct and how the methodological problems, in particular the circularity problem, can be dealt with.

Suggested Citation

  • Homburg, Stefan, 1998. "An Axiomatic Proof of Mirrlees' Formula," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53(3/4), pages 285-295.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:92954
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/92954/1/Homburg1998Axiomatic.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesus Seade, 1982. "On the Sign of the Optimum Marginal Income Tax," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(4), pages 637-643.
    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. Homburg Stefan & Lohse Tim, 2005. "Optimal Taxes and Transfers under Partial Information," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 225(6), pages 622-629, December.
    2. Homburg, Stefan, 2010. "Allgemeine Steuerlehre: Kapitel 1. Grundbegriffe der Steuerlehre," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 92547, September.
    3. Tim Lohse & Peter Lutz & Christian Thomann, 2013. "Redistributional consequences of early childhood intervention," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(3), pages 373-381, June.
    4. Lohse Tim, 2014. "The Objections against Workfare Revised," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 95-118, April.
    5. Schock, Matthias Malte, 2019. "Steuerreformvorschläge des Mirrlees Committee und der Stiftung Marktwirtschaft [Tax Reform Proposals of the Mirrlees Committee and the Stiftung Marktwirtschaft]," MPRA Paper 96689, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Revesz, John T, 1998. "Some Comments on the Reply by Saez and the Article by Homburg [Comparing Elasticities-Based Optimal Income Tax Formulas] [An Axiomatic Proof of Mirrlees' Formula]," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 53(3-4), pages 486-488.

    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. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:8:y:2006:i:2:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Llavador, Humberto, 2018. "Inequality reducing properties of progressive income tax schedules: the case of endogenous income," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    3. Asen Ivanov, 2023. "Borda-optimal taxation of labour income," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(3), pages 331-364, April.
    4. Martin Hellwig, 2004. "Optimal Income Taxation, Public-Goods Provision and Public-Sector Pricing: A Contribution to the Foundations of Public Economics," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2004_14, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    5. Jacquet, Laurence & Lehmann, Etienne & Van der Linden, Bruno, 2013. "Optimal redistributive taxation with both extensive and intensive responses," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(5), pages 1770-1805.
    6. Johann K. Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2008. "Optimum taxation of inheritances," Economics working papers 2008-06, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Marcus Berliant & Shota Fujishima, 2017. "Optimal income taxation with a stationarity constraint in a dynamic stochastic economy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(3), pages 739-747, June.
    8. François Bourguignon & Amedeo Spadaro, 2012. "Tax–benefit revealed social preferences," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 75-108, March.
    9. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2010. "Progressive Estate Taxation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 635-673.
    10. Normann Lorenz & Dominik Sachs, 2011. "Optimal Nonlinear Taxation, Minimum Hours, and the Earned Income Tax Credit," Research Papers in Economics 2011-11, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    11. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael & Tuomala, Matti, 1994. "Optimal non-linear income taxation for the alleviation of income-poverty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1613-1632, October.
    12. Hellwig, Martin F., 2007. "A contribution to the theory of optimal utilitarian income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1449-1477, August.
    13. Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 205-229.
    14. Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The desirability of commodity taxation under non-linear income taxation and heterogeneous tastes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 217-230, February.
    15. Louis Kaplow, 2007. "Optimal income transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(3), pages 295-325, June.
    16. Berliant, Marcus & Fujishima, Shota, 2012. "Optimal dynamic nonlinear income taxes: facing an uncertain future with a sluggish government," MPRA Paper 41947, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Alessandro Cigno, 2011. "Agency in Family Policy: A Survey," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 57(2), pages 305-331, June.
    18. Thomas Gaube, 2005. "Financing Public Goods with Income Taxation: Provision Rules vs. Provision Level," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(3), pages 319-334, May.
    19. Waly Wane, 2002. "Income Taxation and Tax Evasion in a Finite Economy," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 3(2), pages 407-431, November.
    20. Thomas Aronsson & Luca Micheletto, 2017. "Optimal Redistributive Income Taxation and Efficiency Wages," Working Papers 107, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    21. Stefan Homburg, 2001. "The Optimal Income Tax: Restatement and Extensions," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 58(4), pages 363-395, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal income tax;

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    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:zbw:espost:92954. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.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.