IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfr/banfra/438.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Laffer Curve in an Incomplete-Market Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Fève, P.
  • Matheron, J.
  • Sahuc,J-G.

Abstract

This paper investigates the characteristics of the Laffer curve in a neoclassical growth model of the US economy with incomplete markets and heterogeneous agents. The shape of the Laffer curve changes depending on which of transfers or government debt are varied to balance the government budget constraint. While the Laffer curve has the traditional shape when transfers vary, it looks like a horizontal S when debt varies. In this case, fiscal revenues can be associated with up to three different levels of taxation. This finding occurs because the tax rates change non-monotonically with public debt when markets are incomplete.

Suggested Citation

  • Fève, P. & Matheron, J. & Sahuc,J-G., 2013. "The Laffer Curve in an Incomplete-Market Economy," Working papers 438, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/working-paper_438_2013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Floden & Jesper Lindé, 2001. "Idiosyncratic Risk in the United States and Sweden: Is There a Role for Government Insurance?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(2), pages 406-437, July.
    2. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    3. Alonso-Ortiz, Jorge & Rogerson, Richard, 2010. "Taxes, transfers and employment in an incomplete markets model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 949-958, November.
    4. Carroll, Christopher D., 2006. "The method of endogenous gridpoints for solving dynamic stochastic optimization problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 312-320, June.
    5. Feldstein, Martin, 1986. "Supply Side Economics: Old Truths and New Claims," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 26-30, May.
    6. Barillas, Francisco & Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus, 2007. "A generalization of the endogenous grid method," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2698-2712, August.
    7. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    8. Sigrid Röhrs & Christoph Winter, 2011. "Wealth inequality and the optimal level of government debt," ECON - Working Papers 051, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Aiyagari, S. Rao & McGrattan, Ellen R., 1998. "The optimum quantity of debt," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 447-469, October.
    10. Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2006. "Precautionary Savings or Working Longer Hours?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), pages 326-352, April.
    11. Jonathan Heathcote, 2005. "Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneous Agents and Incomplete Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 161-188.
    12. Ljungqvist, Lars & Sargent, Thomas J., 2008. "Taxes, benefits, and careers: Complete versus incomplete markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 98-125, January.
    13. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Andrew Glover & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2011. "Facts on the distributions of earnings, income, and wealth in the United States: 2007 update," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    14. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    15. David Domeij & Jonathan Heathcote, 2004. "On The Distributional Effects Of Reducing Capital Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 523-554, May.
    16. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    17. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    18. Trabandt, Mathias & Uhlig, Harald, 2011. "The Laffer curve revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 305-327.
    19. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    20. Marimon, Ramon & Scott, Andrew (ed.), 1999. "Computational Methods for the Study of Dynamic Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294979.
    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. Juraj Gazda & Viliam Kováč & Peter Tóth & Peter Drotár & Vladimír Gazda, 2017. "Tax optimization in an agent-based model of real-time spectrum secondary market," Telecommunication Systems: Modelling, Analysis, Design and Management, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 543-558, March.
    2. Shuhei Takahashi & Tomoyuki Nakajima, 2016. "Consumption Taxes and Divisibility of Labor under Incomplete Markets," 2016 Meeting Papers 797, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Hans A. Holter & Dirk Krueger & Serhiy Stepanchuk, 2019. "How do tax progressivity and household heterogeneity affect Laffer curves?," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(4), pages 1317-1356, November.
    4. Christine Ma & Chung Tran, 2016. "Fiscal Space under Demographic Shift," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2016-642, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    5. Heer, Burkhard & Polito, Vito & Wickens, Michael R., 2020. "Population aging, social security and fiscal limits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    6. Tomoyuki Nakajima & Shuhei Takahashi, 2020. "The Effectiveness of Consumption Taxes and Transfers as Insurance Against Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(2-3), pages 505-530, March.
    7. F Guedes de Oliveira & L Costa, 2015. "The VAT Laffer Curve and the Business Cycle in the EU27: An Empirical Approach," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 20(2), pages 29-43, September.
    8. Guner, Nezih & Lopez-Daneri, Martin & Ventura, Gustavo, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Government revenues: Higher taxes at the top?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 69-85.
    9. Kotamäki Mauri, 2017. "Laffer Curves and Home Production," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2017(1), pages 59-69, January.

    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. Minchul Yum, 2018. "On the distribution of wealth and employment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 86-105, October.
    2. Vogel, Edgar, 2014. "Optimal Level of Government Debt: Matching Wealth Inequality and the Fiscal Sector," MEA discussion paper series 201410, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    3. Vogel, Edgar, 2014. "Optimal level of government debt - matching wealth inequality and the fiscal sector," Working Paper Series 1665, European Central Bank.
    4. Hsu, Minchung & Yang, C.C., 2013. "Optimal linear and two-bracket income taxes with idiosyncratic earnings risk," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 58-71.
    5. Röhrs, Sigrid & Winter, Christoph, 2017. "Reducing government debt in the presence of inequality," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-20.
    6. Krusell, Per & Mukoyama, Toshihiko & Rogerson, Richard & Sahin, Aysegül, 2011. "A three state model of worker flows in general equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1107-1133, May.
    7. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    8. Berriel, Tiago Couto & Zilberman, Eduardo, 2011. "Targeting the poor: a macroeconomic analysis of cash transfer programs," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 726, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    9. Marta González-Torrabadella & Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2006. "Flat tax reforms: a general equilibrium evaluation for Spain," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 30(2), pages 317-351, May.
    10. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    11. Clemens, Christiane & Heinemann, Maik, 2015. "Endogenous growth and wealth inequality under incomplete markets and idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 300-317.
    12. Kartik B. Athreya & Andrea L. Waddle, 2007. "Implications of some alternatives to capital income taxation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 93(Win), pages 31-55.
    13. Nakajima, Tomoyuki & Takahashi, Shuhei, 2017. "The optimum quantity of debt for Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 17-26.
    14. Tomoyuki Nakajima & Shuhei Takahashi, 2020. "The Effectiveness of Consumption Taxes and Transfers as Insurance Against Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(2-3), pages 505-530, March.
    15. Shuhei Takahashi & Ken Yamada, 2017. "The Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Skill Premium," KIER Working Papers 976, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    16. Alonso-Ortiz, Jorge & Rogerson, Richard, 2010. "Taxes, transfers and employment in an incomplete markets model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 949-958, November.
    17. Bo Hyun Chang & Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim, 2018. "Pareto Weights in Practice: A Quantitative Analysis of 32 OECD Countries," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 28, pages 181-204, April.
    18. Sebastian Dyrda & Marcelo Pedroni, 2015. "Optimal Fiscal Policy in a Model with Uninsurable Idiosyncratic Shocks," Working Papers tecipa-550, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    19. Yongsung Chang & Sun-Bin Kim & Bo Hyun Chang, 2015. "Pareto Weights in Practice: Income Inequality and Tax Reform," 2015 Meeting Papers 224, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Constantine Angyridis & Brennan Scott Thompson, 2016. "Negative income taxes, inequality and poverty," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 1016-1034, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Laffer Curve; Incomplete Markets; Labor Supply; Precautionary Savings; Public Debt.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

    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:bfr:banfra:438. 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: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.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.