IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boi/wpaper/1997.02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Optimal Non-­Linear Income Tax

Author

Listed:
  • Momi Dahan

    (Bank of Israel)

  • Michel Strawczynski

    (Bank of Israel)

Abstract

The dominant model for income taxation in the public finance literature is the classical model of skills (Mirrlees, 1971). Until recently, an influential number of works using this model seemed to support declining marginal tax rates at high income levels. In this paper we use Diamond's (1996) methodology in order to explore the critical assumptions that lead to increasing or decreasing marginal tax rates. We find that with a lognomal distribution of skills and zero income effects there is a case for increasing marginal tax rates at high income levels. By performing a Kernel estimation to Israeli data we find empirical support for the lognormal distribution of skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Momi Dahan & Michel Strawczynski, 1997. "The Optimal Non-­Linear Income Tax," Bank of Israel Working Papers 1997.02, Bank of Israel.
    • Handle: RePEc:boi:wpaper:1997.02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://boiwebrepec.azurefd.net/RePEc/boi/wpaper/WP_1997.02.pdf
    File Function: First version, 1997
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo & Mayshar, Joram & Lundholm, Michael, 1994. "The optimal two-bracket linear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 269-290, February.
    2. Varian, Hal R., 1980. "Redistributive taxation as social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 49-68, August.
    3. Tuomala, Matti, 1984. " Optimal Degree of Progressivity under Income Uncertainty," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(2), pages 184-193.
    4. Stern, N. H., 1976. "On the specification of models of optimum income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 123-162.
    5. Sadka, Efraim, 1976. "On Progressive Income Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(5), pages 931-935, December.
    6. Seade, J. K., 1977. "On the shape of optimal tax schedules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 203-235, April.
    7. Efraim Sadka, 1976. "On Income Distribution, Incentive Effects and Optimal Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(2), pages 261-267.
    8. Kanbur, Ravi & Tuomala, Matti, 1994. " Inherent Inequality and the Optimal Graduation of Marginal Tax Rates," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(2), pages 275-282.
    9. Tuomala, Matti, 1984. "On the optimal income taxation : Some further numerical results," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 351-366, April.
    10. Sahota, Gian Singh, 1978. "Theories of Personal Income Distribution: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-55, March.
    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. Vincenzo Prete & Alessandro Sommacal & Claudio Zoli, 2016. "Optimal Non-Welfarist Income Taxation for Inequality and Polarization Reduction," Working Papers 23/2016, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    2. Hsu, Minchung & Yang, C.C., 2013. "Optimal linear and two-bracket income taxes with idiosyncratic earnings risk," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 58-71.
    3. Strawczynski, Michel, 1998. "Social insurance and the optimum piecewise linear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 371-388, September.
    4. Auerbach, Alan J. & Hines, James Jr., 2002. "Taxation and economic efficiency," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 21, pages 1347-1421, Elsevier.
    5. Sillamaa, M. A., 1999. "How work effort responds to wage taxation: An experimental test of a zero top marginal tax rate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 125-134, July.
    6. Stefan Homburg, 2001. "The Optimal Income Tax: Restatement and Extensions," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 58(4), pages 363-395, November.
    7. Felix FitzRoy & Jim Jin, 2017. "Higher Tax for Top Earners," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 121-136, October.
    8. Chengjian Li & Jinlu Li & Shuanglin Lin, 2015. "Optimal Income Tax for China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 243-267, May.
    9. Ruiz del Portal, X., 2010. "On the qualitative properties of the optimal income tax," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 288-298, May.
    10. Boadway, Robin & Jacquet, Laurence, 2008. "Optimal marginal and average income taxation under maximin," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 425-441, November.
    11. Patricia Apps & Ngo Long & Ray Rees, 2014. "Optimal Piecewise Linear Income Taxation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(4), pages 523-545, August.
    12. Oztek, Abdullah Selim, 2019. "A Characterization for Marginal Income Tax Schedules," MPRA Paper 103046, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Dec 2019.
    13. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo & Mayshar, Joram & Lundholm, Michael, 1994. "The optimal two-bracket linear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 269-290, February.
    14. Louis Kaplow, 2007. "Optimal income transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(3), pages 295-325, June.
    15. Lawson, Nicholas, 2019. "Taxing the job creators: Efficient taxation with bargaining in hierarchical firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-25.
    16. Robin Boadway & Motohiro Sato, 2015. "Optimal Income Taxation with Risky Earnings: A Synthesis," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(6), pages 773-801, December.
    17. Jacobs, Bas & Boadway, Robin, 2014. "Optimal linear commodity taxation under optimal non-linear income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 201-210.
    18. Louis Kaplow, 2022. "Optimal Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 30199, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jean-Francois Wen, "undated". "A Complete Example of an Optimal Two-Bracket Income Tax," Working Papers 2014-42, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, revised 07 Mar 2014.
    20. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2018. "Optimal family taxation and income inequality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1093-1128, October.

    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:boi:wpaper:1997.02. 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: Yossi Yakhin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boigvil.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.