IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ipf/finteo/v30y2006i1p67-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can capital income tax improve welfare in an incomplete market economy with a labor-leisure decision?

Author

Listed:
  • Danijela Medak Fell

    (Institute of Public Finance, Zagreb)

Abstract

This paper is a quantitative exercise in the economic analysis of optimal fiscal policy. We look at an incomplete market economy where agents face idiosyncratic labor productivity shocks and borrowing constraints. We find the steady state equilibrium of this economy and then analyze the effect of a government policy introducing a capital income tax and redistributing the proceeds of tax collection back to the agents in the form of a labor subsidy. We find that this type of policy can indeed improve the welfare of the economy, but its quantitative effect is small. We thus conclude that using capital income tax as fiscal policy instrument is not an effective way to cure the problem of market incompleteness.

Suggested Citation

  • Danijela Medak Fell, 2006. "Can capital income tax improve welfare in an incomplete market economy with a labor-leisure decision?," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(1), pages 67-76.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipf:finteo:v:30:y:2006:i:1:p:67-76
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ijf.hr/eng/FTP/2006/1/medak-fell.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aiyagari, S Rao, 1995. "Optimal Capital Income Taxation with Incomplete Markets, Borrowing Constraints, and Constant Discounting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1158-1175, December.
    2. Teresa Garcia-Milà & Albert Marcet & Eva Ventura, 2010. "Supply Side Interventions and Redistribution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 105-130, March.
    3. Fernando Alvarez & Urban J. Jermann, 2000. "Efficiency, Equilibrium, and Asset Pricing with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 775-798, July.
    4. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    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. Katharina Greulich & Sarolta Laczó & Albert Marcet, 2023. "Pareto-Improving Optimal Capital and Labor Taxes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(7), pages 1904-1946.
    2. Jonathan Heathcote, 2003. "On the Distributional Effects of Reducing Capital Taxes (previously: Factor Taxation with Heterogeneous Agents)," Working Papers gueconwpa~03-03-22, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    3. Biljanovska, Nina & Vardoulakis, Alexandros P., 2019. "Capital taxation with heterogeneous discounting and collateralized borrowing," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 97-109.
    4. Koskela Erkki & Thadden Leopold von, 2008. "Optimal Factor Taxation under Wage Bargaining: A Dynamic Perspective," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 135-159, May.
    5. Boháček, Radim & Kejak, Michal, 2018. "Optimal government policies in models with heterogeneous agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 834-858.
    6. Frédéric Dufourt & Lisa Kerdelhué & Océane Piétri, 2022. "Budget-Neutral Capital Tax Cuts," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 146, pages 93-121.
    7. Ábrahám, Árpád & Cárceles-Poveda, Eva, 2010. "Endogenous trading constraints with incomplete asset markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 974-1004, May.
    8. Yili Chien & Junsang Lee, 2006. "Why Tax Capital?," 2006 Meeting Papers 492, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Dirk Krueger, 2006. "Public Insurance against Idiosyncratic and Aggregate Risk: The Case of Social Security and Progressive Income Taxation," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 52(4), pages 587-620, December.
    10. YiLi Chien & JunSang Lee, 2006. "Optimal Capital Taxation under Limited Commitment," 2006 Meeting Papers 430, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Domeij, David & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2000. "Factor Taxation with Heterogeneous Agents," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 372, Stockholm School of Economics.
    12. Yena Park, 2012. "Optimal Taxation in a Limited Commitment Economy," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. David Domeij & Jonathan Heathcote, 2000. "Capital Versus Labor Taxation with Heterogeneous Agents," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0834, Econometric Society.
    14. Angelopoulos, Konstantinos & Jiang, Wei & Malley, James R., 2013. "Tax reforms under market distortions in product and labour markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 28-42.
    15. James B. Davies & Jinli Zeng & Jie Zhang, 2009. "Time‐consistent taxation in a dynastic family model with human and physical capital and a balanced government budget," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3), pages 1023-1049, August.
    16. Honerkamp, Josef & Moog, Stefan & Raffelhüschen, Bernd, 2004. "Earlier or Later: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Bringing Forward an Already Announced Tax Reform," Discussion Papers 123, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institut für Finanzwissenschaft.
    17. Charles Grant & Christos Koulovatianos & Alexander Michaelides & Mario Padula, 2010. "Evidence on the Insurance Effect of Redistributive Taxation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 965-973, November.
    18. Anagnostopoulos, Alexis & Cárceles-Poveda, Eva & Lin, Danmo, 2012. "Dividend and capital gains taxation under incomplete markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 599-611.
    19. Piero Gottardi & Atsushi Kajii & Tomoyuki Nakajima, 2015. "Optimal Taxation and Debt with Uninsurable Risks to Human Capital Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3443-3470, November.
    20. Stefania Albanesi & Roc Armenter, 2012. "Intertemporal Distortions in the Second Best," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1271-1307.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    optimal fiscal policy; incomplete markets; precautionary saving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:ipf:finteo:v:30:y:2006:i:1:p:67-76. 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: Martina Fabris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ijfffhr.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.