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Non-Welfarist Optimal Taxation And Behavioural Public Economics

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Author Info
Ravi Kanbur
Jukka Pirttilä
Matti Tuomala

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Abstract

Research in behavioural economics has uncovered the widespread phenomenon of people making decisions against their own good intentions. In these situations, the government might want to intervene, indeed individuals might want the government to intervene, to induce behaviour that is closer to what individuals wish they were doing. The analysis of such corrective interventions, through taxes and subsidies, might be called 'behavioural public economics'. However, such analysis, where the government has an objective function that is different from that of individuals, is not new in public economics. In these cases the government is said to be 'non-welfarist' in its objectives, and there is a long tradition of non-welfarist welfare economics, especially the analysis of optimal taxation and subsidy policy where the outcomes of individual behaviour are evaluated using a preference function different from the one that generated the outcomes. First of all the object of this paper is to present a unified view of the non-welfarist optimal taxation literature and, second, to present behavioural public economics as a natural special case of this general framework. Copyright 2006 The Authors Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Article provided by Blackwell Publishing in its journal Journal of Economic Surveys.

Volume (Year): 20 (2006)
Issue (Month): 5 (December)
Pages: 849-868
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Handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:20:y:2006:i:5:p:849-868

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. J. A. Mirrlees, 1976. "Optimal Tax Theory: A Synthesis," Working papers 176, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  2. Racionero, Maria del Mar, 2001. "Optimal Tax Mix with Merit Goods," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 628-41, October.
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  3. Oswald, Andrew J., 1983. "Altruism, jealousy and the theory of optimal non-linear taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 77-87, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Michael J. Boskin & Eytan Sheshinski, 1976. "Optimal Income Redistribution When Individual Welfare Depends Upon Relative Income," NBER Working Papers 0144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Studying Optimal Paternalism, Illustrated by a Model of Sin Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 186-191, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael & Tuomala, Matti, 1994. "Labor Supply and Targeting in Poverty Alleviation Programs," World Bank Economic Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 191-211, May.
  8. Diamond, Peter & Koszegi, Botond, 2003. "Quasi-hyperbolic discounting and retirement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1839-1872, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Maria Racionero, 2000. "Optimal Redistribution with Unobservable Preferences for an Observable Merit Good," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 479-501, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael & Tuomala, Matti, 1994. "Optimal non-linear income taxation for the alleviation of income-poverty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1613-1632, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Sandmo, Agnar, 1983. "Ex Post Welfare Economics and the Theory of Merit Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(197), pages 19-33, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Pirttila, Jukka & Tuomala, Matti, 2004. "Poverty alleviation and tax policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1075-1090, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Eytan Sheshinski, 2000. "Bounded Rationality and Socially Optimal Limits on Choice in a Self-Selection Model," Discussion Paper Series dp330, Center for Rationality and Interactive Decision Theory, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, revised Nov 2002. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Besley, Timothy, 1988. "A simple model for merit good arguments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 371-383, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Besley, Timothy J & Kanbur, S M Ravi, 1988. "Food Subsidies and Poverty Alleviation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(392), pages 701-19, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Schokkaert, Erik & Van de gaer, Dirk & Vandenbroucke, Frank & Luttens, Roland Iwan, 2004. "Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism and optimal linear income taxation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 151-182, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-31, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Rabin, Matthew, 2002. "A perspective on psychology and economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 657-685, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Matthew Rabin, 2002. "A Perspective on Psychology and Economics," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series 1003, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Haaparanta, Pertti & Pirttilä, Jukka, 2005. "Reforms and Confidence," BOFIT Discussion Papers 1/2005, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Elodie Brahic & Valérie Clément & Nathalie Moureau & Marion Vidal, 2008. "A la recherche des Merit Goods," Working Papers 08-08, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Jun 2008. [Downloadable!]
  3. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Joel Slemrod, 2005. "The Economics of Workaholism: We Should Not Have Worked on This Paper," IZA Discussion Papers 1680, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Jukka Pirttilä & Sanna Tenhunen, 2005. "Pawns and Queens Revisited: Public Provision of Private Goods when Individuals make Mistakes," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  5. Ed Hopkins, 2008. "Inequality, Happiness and Relative Concerns: What Actually is their Relationship?," ESE Discussion Papers 180, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh. [Downloadable!]
  6. Ed Hopkins, 2008. "Inequality, Happiness and Relative Concerns: What Actually is their Relationship?," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001896, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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