We consider changes in income tax progressivity in an economy where workers' productivities differ and workers and firms bargain individually over wages. With given employment a pure increase in tax progressivity reduces wages by reducing workers' relative bargaining power. When average taxes also increase, after-tax wages are unambiguously reduced, while the effects on gross wages and firm profitability are ambiguous. We next endogenize employment and firm entry under a uniform worker productivity distribution and the government's only policy instrument is a linear income tax. While a first-best solution then is ruled out, a second-best solution can be implemented using a family of linear tax functions, where a more progressive tax implies a higher tax revenue to the government. We show that the government can increase its tax revenue, and reduce after-tax income differences, without any additional disturbance to allocation. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002
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Volume (Year): 9 (2002) Issue (Month): 2 (March) Pages: 195-210 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Wolfram F. Richter & Peter Birch Sørensen, .
"Optimal Taxation with Household Production,"
EPRU Working Paper Series
99-12, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
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