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Is There a Demand for Income Tax Progressivity?

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  • Jean Hindriks

    (Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London)

Abstract

Recently Marhuenda and Ortuno-Ortin (1995) have provided a popular support for progressivity theorem that says that a marginal progressive tax always defeats a marginal regressive tax as long as individuals vote for the tax scheme minimizing their tax liabilities and the median income is less than the mean income. In this paper we provide, under similar circumstances, a popular support for regressivity theorem according to which more marginal regressivity (or less marginal progressivity) can always defeat any existing tax scheme. This move towards more regressivity (or less progressivity) is supported by the extremes of the income distribution. Combining this result with Marhuenda and Ortuno-Ortin's result implies that vote cycling is inevitable and that the demand for progressivity cannot be established in the standard Downsian framework with self-interested voters.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean Hindriks, 2000. "Is There a Demand for Income Tax Progressivity?," Working Papers 415, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:415
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marhuenda, Francisco & Ortuno-Ortin, Ignacio, 1995. "Popular support for progressive taxation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(3-4), pages 319-324, June.
    2. De Donder, Philippe & Le Breton, Michel & Truchon, Michel, 1998. "Choosing from a Weighted Tournament," Cahiers de recherche 9815, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
    3. Snyder, James M. & Kramer, Gerald H., 1988. "Fairness, self-interest, and the politics of the progressive income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 197-230, July.
    4. De Donder, Philippe & Hindriks, Jean, 2003. "The politics of progressive income taxation with incentive effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2491-2505, October.
    5. Myles, Gareth D., 2000. "On the optimal marginal rate of income tax," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 113-119, January.
    6. De Donder, Philippe & Hindriks, Jean, 2003. "The politics of progressive income taxation with incentive effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2491-2505, October.
    7. John E. Roemer, 1999. "The Democratic Political Economy of Progressive Income Taxation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 1-20, January.
    8. Young, H Peyton, 1990. "Progressive Taxation and Equal Sacrifice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 253-266, March.
    9. De Donder, Philippe & Le Breton, Michel & Truchon, Michel, 2000. "Choosing from a weighted tournament1," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 85-109, July.
    10. Mitra, Tapan & Ok, Efe A. & Kockesen, Levent, 1998. "Popular support for progressive taxation and the relative income hypothesis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 69-76, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Soumyanetra Munshi, 2011. "On existence of pure strategy equilibrium with endogenous income," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(1), pages 1-37, June.
    2. Jenny de Freitas, 2009. "A probabilistic voting model of progressive taxation with incentive effects," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 190(3), pages 9-26, September.
    3. Jean-Michel Grandmont, 2004. "Fiscally Stable Income Distributions under Majority Voting and Bargaining Sets," Working Papers 2004-18, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    4. Zsofia Barany, 2011. "Income inequality and the progressivity of taxes in a coalition formation model," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00972940, HAL.
    5. Carbonell-Nicolau Oriol, 2009. "A Positive Theory of Income Taxation," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-49, July.
    6. Harms, Philipp & Zink, Stefan, 2003. "Eating the Rich vs. Feeding the Poor: Borrowing Constraints and the Reluctance to Redistribute," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 116(3-4), pages 351-366, September.
    7. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Ok, Efe A., 2007. "Voting over income taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 249-286, May.
    8. De Donder, Philippe & Hindriks, Jean, 2003. "The politics of progressive income taxation with incentive effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2491-2505, October.
    9. Matias Nunez, 2007. "Tax avoidance and the political appeal of progressivity," Working Papers hal-00243060, HAL.
    10. Zsofia Barany, 2011. "Income inequality and the progressivity of taxes in a coalition formation model," SciencePo Working papers hal-00972940, HAL.
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    14. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09i8hj22lpn is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Daniel R. Carroll, 2013. "The demand for income tax progressivity in the growth model," Working Papers (Old Series) 1106, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting; Redistribution; Income tax progressivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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