IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/irapec/v32y2018i6p772-806.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The revenue potential of a financial transaction tax for US financial markets

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Pollin
  • James Heintz
  • Thomas Herndon

Abstract

This paper estimates the revenue potential of a financial transaction tax (FTT) for US financial markets. We focus on analyzing the revenue potential of the Inclusive Prosperity Act that was introduced in the US House of Representatives in 2012 and the US Senate in 2015. The tax rates stipulated in this Act include 0.5% (50 basis points (bps)) for all stock transactions, 0.1% (10 bps) for all bond transactions and 0.005% (0.5 bps) on the notional value of all derivative trades. We examine three sets of evidence to generate potential revenue estimates: 1) the levels of transaction costs in US financial markets over time and within the range of financial market segments; 2) the extent of trading elasticities under various trading conditions; and 3) the current level of trading activity in US financial markets. Based on this evidence, we conclude that a US FTT operating at the tax rates stated above would generate about $220 billion per year, equal to about 1.2% of the current US GDP.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Pollin & James Heintz & Thomas Herndon, 2018. "The revenue potential of a financial transaction tax for US financial markets," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(6), pages 772-806, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:irapec:v:32:y:2018:i:6:p:772-806
    DOI: 10.1080/02692171.2018.1485634
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02692171.2018.1485634
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02692171.2018.1485634?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emilio Abad-Segura & Mariana-Daniela González-Zamar, 2020. "Global Research Trends in Financial Transactions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-32, April.
    2. Riedl Drew, 2020. "Financing Universal Basic Income: Eliminating Poverty and Bolstering the Middle Class While Addressing Inequality, Economic Rents, and Climate Change," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 1-34, December.

    More about this item

    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:taf:irapec:v:32:y:2018:i:6:p:772-806. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIRA20 .

    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.