IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3932.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumption Taxes in a Life-Cycle Framework: Are Sin Taxes Regressive?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew B. Lyon
  • Robert M. Schwab

Abstract

In this paper we construct measures of tax incidence over the life-cycle and compare these measures to traditional measures based on annual data. We show that annual measures of the incidence of taxes on consumption goods may differ from life-cycle measures for three reasons. First, annual measures of income reflect transitory components which should have smaller effects on consumption than permanent changes in income. Second, income measured in a single period differs from lifetime income due to age-related differences in earnings. Third, consumption of certain items follows life-cycle patterns independent of changes in income. Surprisingly, we find that these effects cause almost no change in the assessment of the incidence of taxes applying to the consumption of cigarettes. For alcohol, however, we find that a tax on its consumption is slightly less regressive when measured with respect to lifetime income than when measured with respect to annual income.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew B. Lyon & Robert M. Schwab, 1991. "Consumption Taxes in a Life-Cycle Framework: Are Sin Taxes Regressive?," NBER Working Papers 3932, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3932
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3932.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poterba, James M, 1989. "Lifetime Incidence and the Distributional Burden of Excise Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 325-330, May.
    2. James M. Poterba, 1991. "Is the Gasoline Tax Regressive?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 145-164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Fullerton, Don & Rogers, Diane Lim, 1991. "Lifetime Versus Annual Perspectives on Tax Incidence," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 44(3), pages 277-287, September.
    5. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    6. Suits, Daniel B, 1977. "Measurement of Tax Progressivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 747-752, September.
    7. Lillard, Lee A, 1977. "Inequality: Earnings vs. Human Wealth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 42-53, March.
    8. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1.
    9. Becketti, Sean & Gould, William & Lillard, Lee & Welch, Finis, 1988. "The Panel Study of Income Dynamics after Fourteen Years: An Evaluatio n," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 472-492, October.
    10. Fullerton, Don & Rogers, Diane Lim, 1991. "Lifetime Versus Annual Perspectives on Tax Incidence," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 44(3), pages 277-87, September.
    11. Hall, Robert E & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 461-481, March.
    12. Lee, Lung-Fei & Trost, Robert P., 1978. "Estimation of some limited dependent variable models with application to housing demand," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 357-382, December.
    13. Atkinson, A B & Gomulka, J & Stern, N H, 1990. "Spending on Alcohol: Evidence from the Family Expenditure Survey 1970-1983," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(402), pages 808-827, September.
    14. Davies, James B & St-Hilaire, France & Whalley, John, 1984. "Some Calculations of Lifetime Tax Incidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 633-649, September.
    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. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    2. Agostini, Claudio A. & Jiménez, Johanna, 2015. "The distributional incidence of the gasoline tax in Chile," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 243-252.
    3. Caspersen, Erik & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 1994. "Is a Value Added Tax Regressive? Annual Versus Lifetime Incidence Measures," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(4), pages 731-746, December.
    4. Teixidó, Jordi J. & Verde, Stefano F., 2017. "Is the Gasoline Tax Regressive in the Twenty-First Century? Taking Wealth into Account," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 109-125.
    5. Don Fullerton & Gilbert Metcalf, 2002. "The Distribution of Tax Burdens," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0201, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    6. Seth B. Sacher, 1993. "Housing Demand and Property Tax Incidence in a Life-Cycle Framework," Public Finance Review, , vol. 21(3), pages 235-259, July.
    7. Gilbert E. Metcalf & Don Fullerton, 2002. "The Distribution of Tax Burdens: An Introduction," NBER Working Papers 8978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Rausch, Sebastian & Metcalf, Gilbert E. & Reilly, John M., 2011. "Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: A general equilibrium approach with micro-data for households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(S1), pages 20-33.
    9. David E. Altig & Charles T. Carlstrom, 1995. "Marginal tax rates and income inequality: a quantitative-theoretic analysis," Working Papers (Old Series) 9508, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    10. Walls, Margaret & Hanson, Jean, 1996. "Distributional Impacts of an Environmental Tax Shift: The Case of Motor Vehicle Emissions Taxes," Discussion Papers 10895, Resources for the Future.
    11. Claudio A., Agostini & Johanna, Jiménez, 2012. "La incidencia distributiva del impuesto a las gasolinas en Chile," Estudios Públicos, Centro de Estudios Públicos, vol. 0(125), pages 53-85.
    12. Claudio A. , Agostini & Johanna, Jiménez, 2012. "La incidencia distributiva del impuesto a las gasolinas en Chile," Estudios Públicos, Centro de Estudios Públicos, vol. 0(126), pages 53-85.
    13. Peter Levell & Barra Roantree & Jonathan Shaw, 2021. "Mobility and the lifetime distributional impact of tax and transfer reforms," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(4), pages 751-793, August.
    14. Dillon Alleyne, 2007. "The Evolution of Jamaica’s Tax Burden," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(1), pages 150-171, January.
    15. Rausch Sebastian & Metcalf Gilbert E. & Reilly John M & Paltsev Sergey, 2010. "Distributional Implications of Alternative U.S. Greenhouse Gas Control Measures," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-46, July.
    16. Corrado Benassi & Emanuela Randon, 2021. "The distribution of the tax burden and the income distribution: theory and empirical evidence," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 1087-1108, October.
    17. Fehr, Hans, 1999. "Welfare Effects of Dynamic Tax Reforms," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 5, number urn:isbn:9783161470165, September.
    18. Elin Halvorsen & Thor O. Thoresen, 2021. "Distributional Effects of a Wealth Tax under Lifetime‐Dynastic Income Concepts," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(1), pages 184-215, January.
    19. Schmitz, Christoph & Biewald, Anne & Lotze-Campen, Hermann & Popp, Alexander, 2011. "Increased Agricultural Trade and its Impacts on Food System, Land-use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Conference papers 332165, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    20. Nils Ohlendorf & Michael Jakob & Jan Christoph Minx & Carsten Schröder & Jan Christoph Steckel, 2021. "Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing: A Meta-Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(1), pages 1-42, January.

    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:nbr:nberwo:3932. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.