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Taxes and Market Power: A Principal Components Approach

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  • Andrea Galeotti
  • Benjamin Golub
  • Sanjeev Goyal
  • Eduard Talam`as
  • Omer Tamuz

Abstract

Suppliers of differentiated goods make simultaneous pricing decisions, which are strategically linked. Because of market power, the equilibrium is inefficient. We study how a policymaker should target a budget-balanced tax-and-subsidy policy to increase welfare. A key tool is a certain basis for the goods space, determined by the network of interactions among suppliers. It consists of eigenbundles -- orthogonal in the sense that a tax on any eigenbundle passes through only to its own price -- with pass-through coefficients determined by associated eigenvalues. Our basis permits a simple characterization of optimal interventions. A planner maximizing consumer surplus should tax eigenbundles with low pass-through and subsidize ones with high pass-through. The Pigouvian leverage of the system -- the gain in consumer surplus achievable by an optimal tax scheme -- depends only on the dispersion of the eigenvalues of the matrix of strategic interactions. We interpret these results in terms of the network structure of the market.

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  • Andrea Galeotti & Benjamin Golub & Sanjeev Goyal & Eduard Talam`as & Omer Tamuz, 2021. "Taxes and Market Power: A Principal Components Approach," Papers 2112.08153, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2112.08153
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    References listed on IDEAS

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