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Social Discounting and Incentive Compatible Fiscal Policy

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  • Catarina Reis

    (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa)

Abstract

This paper considers a Ramsey model of linear capital and labor income taxation in which the government cannot commit ex-ante to a sequence of policies for the future. In this setup, if the government is more impatient than households, the capital income tax will always be positive in steady state. Furthermore, the steady state to which the economy converges is independent of initial conditions. Numerical simulations suggest that as the difference between private and public discounting increases, the level of the steady state capital tax and public debt also become higher.

Suggested Citation

  • Catarina Reis, 2009. "Social Discounting and Incentive Compatible Fiscal Policy," 2009 Meeting Papers 413, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed009:413
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Aguiar, Mark & Amador, Manuel, 2016. "Fiscal policy in debt constrained economies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 37-75.
    2. Nina Biljanovska & Alexandros Vardoulakis, 2017. "Capital Taxation with Heterogeneous Discounting and Collateralized Borrowing," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-053, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Valeria Bonis & Luca Spataro, 2018. "Optimal income taxation and migration," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 867-882, August.
    4. Biljanovska, Nina & Vardoulakis, Alexandros P., 2019. "Capital taxation with heterogeneous discounting and collateralized borrowing," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 97-109.
    5. Thomas I. Renström & Luca Spataro, 2021. "Optimal taxation in an endogenous growth model with variable population and public expenditure," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(4), pages 639-659, August.
    6. Rieth, Malte, 2017. "Capital taxation and government debt policy with public discounting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-20.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

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