IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ays/ispwps/paper1822.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Net Welfare Benefit Approach to Optimal Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Cristian F. Sepulveda

    (Farmingdale State College, SUNY)

Abstract

This paper challenges the widespread notion that the labor income tax is an inherently distortionary tax instrument. Optimal tax theory considers the lump-sum tax as the only efficient or non-distortionary tax instrument. This conclusion depends on two (often implicit) assumptions: one is that the economy is operating at the optimal welfare maximizing solution, where the marginal cost of tax revenue is equal to its marginal benefit; and the other that public expenditure has no effect on taxpayers’ budget constraints. However, for a government program to be worthwhile, total benefit must be greater than total cost, and it is easy to find examples where budget constraints are affected by public expenditure. This paper shows that, when the two assumptions are relaxed, the combined use of labor income and lump-sum taxes may allow a representative taxpayer to reach greater levels of welfare than the use of a lump-sum tax alone.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristian F. Sepulveda, 2018. "A Net Welfare Benefit Approach to Optimal Taxation," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1822, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2018/10/paper1822.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bohanon, Cecil E & Van Cott, T Norman, 1986. "Labor Supply and Tax Rates: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 277-279, March.
    2. Charles L. Ballard & Don Fullerton, 1992. "Distortionary Taxes and the Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 117-131, Summer.
    3. Gwartney, James & Stroup, Richard, 1983. "Labor Supply and Tax Rates: A Correction of the Record," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 446-451, June.
    4. Auerbach, Alan J. & Hines, James Jr., 2002. "Taxation and economic efficiency," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 21, pages 1347-1421, Elsevier.
    5. Gahvari, Firouz, 1986. "Labor Supply and Tax Rates: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 280-283, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Shaghil Ahmed & Dean Croushore, 1996. "The Marginal Cost of Funds With Nonseparable Public Spending," Public Finance Review, , vol. 24(2), pages 216-236, April.
    2. Firouz Gahvari, 1991. "Tax Rates, Labor Supply, and the Structure of Preferences," Public Finance Review, , vol. 19(4), pages 466-476, October.
    3. Kaplow, Louis, 2006. "Public goods and the distribution of income," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1627-1660, October.
    4. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Nicolaj Verdelin, 2008. "Optimal Provision of Public Goods: A Synthesis," EPRU Working Paper Series 08-05, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    5. Louis Kaplow, 2004. "On the (Ir)Relevence of Distribution and Labor Supply Distortion of Government Policy," NBER Working Papers 10490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bovenberg, A. Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H., 2002. "Environmental taxation and regulation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1471-1545, Elsevier.
    7. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Nicolaj Verdelin, 2012. "Optimal Provision of Public Goods: A Synthesis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 384-408, June.
    8. Nathaniel Hendren, 2016. "The Policy Elasticity," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 51-89.
    9. Enlinson Mattos, 2007. "Cash-Cum-In-Kind Transfers, Tax Rates And Labor Supply: Qualifying The Record," Anais do XXXV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 35th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 020, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    10. Kahana, Nava & Klunover, Doron, 2014. "Rent Seeking and the Excess Burden of Taxation," IZA Discussion Papers 8160, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Gahvari, Firouz, 2006. "On the marginal cost of public funds and the optimal provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1251-1262, August.
    12. Kahana, Nava & Klunover, Doron, 2014. "Rent seeking and the excess burden of taxation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 158-167.
    13. Mattos, Enlinson & Terra, Rafael, 2016. "Cash-cum-in-kind transfers and income tax function," Textos para discussão 414, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    14. Harvey, David R., 2003. "Policy Dependency And Reform: Economic Gains Versus Political Pains," 2003 Annual Meeting, August 16-22, 2003, Durban, South Africa 25865, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Tran, Chung & Wende, Sebastian, 2021. "On the marginal excess burden of taxation in an overlapping generations model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. James B. Davies & Jinli Zeng & Jie Zhang, 2009. "Time‐consistent taxation in a dynastic family model with human and physical capital and a balanced government budget," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3), pages 1023-1049, August.
    17. Kind, Hans Jarle & Koethenbuerger, Marko & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2008. "Efficiency enhancing taxation in two-sided markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1531-1539, June.
    18. De Vito, Antonio & Pancotto, Livia & Perdichizzi, Salvatore & Reghezza, Alessio, 2023. "Don’t go on holiday in August! Market reaction to an unexpected windfall tax on banks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    19. Blackorby, Charles & Brett, Craig, 2004. "Capital Taxation In A Simple Finite-Horizon Olg Model," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 709, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    20. Go, Delfin S. & Kearney, Marna & Robinson, Sherman & Thierfelder, Karen, 2004. "An Analysis of South Africa's Value Added Tax," Conference papers 331274, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ays:ispwps:paper1822. 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: Paul Benson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ispgsus.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.