IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdf/wpaper/2006-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting the Capital Tax Ambiguity Result

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We provide a welfare based interpretation of the capital tax ambiguity result (due to Guo & Lansing, 1999). We show that the sign ambiguity of optimal capital tax rate in an imperfectly competitive economy is mainly due to the welfare cost of investment. The substitution and income effects of profit seeking investment reinforce each other which create a deadweight loss in welfare. Investors cannot perceive this effect and never invest at the right level. This loss is perceived only by the government which motivates capital taxation.

Suggested Citation

  • Selim, Sheikh, 2006. "Revisiting the Capital Tax Ambiguity Result," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2006/20, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section, revised Feb 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2006/20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://carbsecon.com/wp/E2006_20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth L. Judd, 2002. "Capital-Income Taxation with Imperfect Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 417-421, May.
    2. Kenneth L. Judd, 1997. "The Optimal Tax Rate for Capital Income is Negative," NBER Working Papers 6004, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Judd, Kenneth L., 1999. "Optimal taxation and spending in general competitive growth models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 1-26, January.
    4. Guo, Jang-Ting & Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal taxation of capital income with imperfectly competitive product markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 967-995, June.
    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. Wei Jiang, 2014. "Optimal taxation and labour wedge in models with equilibrium unemployment," Studies in Economics 1407, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    2. Jiang Wei, 2019. "Optimal taxation under equilibrium unemployment and economic profits," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, January.
    3. Javier Coto-Martínez & Carlos Garriga & Fernando Sánchez-Losada, 2007. "Optimal Taxation with Imperfect Competition and Aggregate Returns to Specialization," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(6), pages 1269-1299, December.
    4. Mino, Kazuo, 2001. "Optimal taxation in dynamic economies with increasing returns," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 235-253, August.
    5. 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.
    6. Coto-Martinez, J. & Garriga, C. & Sanchez-Losada, F., 2004. "Optimal taxation with imperfect competition and increasing returns to specialization," Working Papers 04/10, Department of Economics, City University London.
    7. Alberto Petrucci, 2010. "Second-Best Optimal Taxation of Oil and Capital in a Small Open Economy," Working Papers 2010.20, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    8. Jang-Ting Guo, 2005. "Tax Policy Under Keeping Up with the Joneses and Imperfect Competition," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 6(1), pages 25-36, May.
    9. Arefiev, Nikolay & Baron, Tatyana, 2006. "Capital Taxation and Rent Seeking," MPRA Paper 9988, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Tapio Palokangas, 2014. "Optimal Capital Taxation, Labour Unions, and the Hold-Up Problem," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(4), pages 359-375, December.
    11. Long Xin & Pelloni Alessandra, 2011. "Welfare improving taxation on savings in a growth model," wp.comunite 0091, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    12. Chen, Been-Lon & Lu, Chia-Hui, 2013. "Optimal factor tax incidence in two-sector human capital-based models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 75-94.
    13. Baltasar Manzano & Jesús Ruiz, 2004. "Política fiscal óptima: el estado de la cuestión," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 28(1), pages 5-41, January.
    14. Maria Ferrara & Patrizio Tirelli, 2014. "Fiscal Consolidations: Can We Reap the Gain and Escape the Pain?," Working Papers 283, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2014.
    15. Cerda, Rodrigo A. & Saravia, Diego, 2013. "Optimal taxation with heterogeneous firms and informal sector," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 39-61.
    16. Tang Jenn-Hong, 2020. "Ramsey income taxation in a small open economy with trade in capital goods," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-48, January.
    17. Louis Kaplow, 2019. "Market Power and Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 25578, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Chari, V.V. & Nicolini, Juan Pablo & Teles, Pedro, 2020. "Optimal capital taxation revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 147-165.
    19. Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal redistributive capital taxation in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 423-453, September.
    20. Chen, Ping-Ho & Chu, Angus C. & Chu, Hsun & Lai, Ching-Chong, 2023. "Optimal capital taxation in an economy with innovation-driven growth," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 635-668, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal taxation; Monopoly power; Ramsey policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cdf:wpaper:2006/20. 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: Yongdeng Xu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecscfuk.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.