IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_142.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Redistribution and the Marginal Cost of Public Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Agnar Sandmo

Abstract

Discussions of the marginal cost of public funds with distortionary taxation are often cast in the framework of a one-consumer economy, while the main justification of distortionary taxes is that they are needed for redistribution. This paper analyzes the issue in a model with heterogeneous consumers and a linear income tax, focusing on the tradeoff between labour market distortions and the redistribution from high-wage to low-wage workers. In an optimal tax system the MCF will be the same for all sources of funds and under certain assumptions less than one. Without optimality the MCF will in general differ between different sources of finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Agnar Sandmo, 1997. "Redistribution and the Marginal Cost of Public Funds," CESifo Working Paper Series 142, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_142
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/ces_wp142.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wildasin, David E, 1984. "On Public Good Provision with Distortionary Taxation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(2), pages 227-243, April.
    2. Snow, Arthur & Warren, Ronald Jr., 1996. "The marginal welfare cost of public funds: Theory and estimates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 289-305, August.
    3. Vidar Christiansen, 1981. "Evaluation of Public Projects under Optimal Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(3), pages 447-457.
    4. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    5. Hylland, Aanund & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1979. " Distributional Objectives Should Affect Taxes but not Program Choice or Design," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 81(2), pages 264-284.
    6. Agell, Jonas & Englund, Peter & Sodersten, Jan, 1996. "Tax Reform of the Century -- the Swedish Experiment," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(4), pages 643-664, December.
    7. Browning, Edgar K, 1987. "On the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 11-23, March.
    8. Killingsworth, Mark R. & Heckman, James J., 1987. "Female labor supply: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 103-204, Elsevier.
    9. Charles L. Ballard & Don Fullerton, 1992. "Distortionary Taxes and the Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 117-131, Summer.
    10. Dixit, Avinash K & Sandmo, Angar, 1977. " Some Simplified Formulae for Optimal Income Taxation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 79(4), pages 417-423.
    11. Wilson, John Douglas, 1991. "Optimal Public Good Provision with Limited Lump-Sum Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 153-166, March.
    12. Deaton, Angus, 1977. "Equity, efficiency, and the structure of indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 299-312, December.
    13. A. B. Atkinson & N. H. Stern, 1974. "Pigou, Taxation and Public Goods," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 119-128.
    14. King, Mervyn A., 1986. "A pigovian rule for the optimum provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 273-291, August.
    15. Hansson, Ingemar & Stuart, Charles, 1985. "Tax revenue and the marginal cost of public funds in Sweden," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 331-353, August.
    16. Dahlby, Bev, 1998. "Progressive taxation and the social marginal cost of public funds," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 105-122, January.
    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. Liqun Liu, 2006. "Combining Distributional Weights and the Marginal Cost of Funds," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 60-79, January.
    2. Liqun Liu & Andrew J. Rettenmaier & Thomas R. Saving, 2004. "A Generalized Approach to Multigeneration Project Evaluation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(2), pages 377-396, October.
    3. Bas Jacobs, 2018. "The marginal cost of public funds is one at the optimal tax system," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 883-912, August.
    4. Åsmund Sunde Valseth & Katinka Holtsmark & Bjart Holtsmark, 2019. "The costs of taxation in the presence of inequality," Discussion Papers 908, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    5. Liu, Liqun, 2003. "A marginal cost of funds approach to multi-period public project evaluation: implications for the social discount rate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1707-1718, August.
    6. Liqun Liu, 2004. "The Marginal Cost of Funds and the Shadow Prices of Public Sector Inputs and Outputs," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 11(1), pages 17-29, January.
    7. Bovenberg, A. Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H., 2002. "Environmental taxation and regulation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1471-1545, Elsevier.
    8. Spencer Bastani, 2023. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds: A Brief Guide," CESifo Working Paper Series 10322, CESifo.
    9. Dan Usher, 2006. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds Is the Ratio of Mean Income to Median Income," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(6), pages 687-711, November.
    10. Ming Chung Chang & Shufen Wu, 2011. "Should Marginal Cost of Public Funds include the Revenue Effect?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 147(I), pages 1-16, March.
    11. James E. Anderson & Will Martin, 2011. "Costs of Taxation and Benefits of Public Goods with Multiple Taxes and Goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(2), pages 289-309, April.
    12. Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Kreiner, Claus Thustrup, 2006. "The marginal cost of public funds: Hours of work versus labor force participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1955-1973, November.
    13. Will Martin & James E. Anderson, 2005. "Costs of Taxation and the Benefits of Public Goods: The Role of Income Effects," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 617, Boston College Department of Economics.
    14. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Nicolaj Verdelin, 2008. "Optimal Provision of Public Goods: A Synthesis," EPRU Working Paper Series 08-05, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    15. Chris Jones, 2005. "Why the Marginal Social Cost of Funds is not the Shadow Value of Government Revenue," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2005-449, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    16. Louis Kaplow, 1993. "Should the Government's Allocation Branch be Concerned about the Distortionary Cost of Taxation and Distributive Effects?," NBER Working Papers 4566, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Atsushi Tsuneki, 2002. "Shadow-Pricing Interpretation of the Pigovian Rule for the Optimal Provision of Public Goods: A Note," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(1), pages 93-104, January.
    18. Agnar Sandmo, 2001. "Bridging the Tax-Expenditure Gap: Green Taxes and the Marginal Cost of Funds," CESifo Working Paper Series 579, CESifo.
    19. Bas Jacobs, 2010. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds is One," CESifo Working Paper Series 3250, CESifo.
    20. Ian Parry, 2002. "Tax Deductions and the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(5), pages 531-552, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:ces:ceswps:_142. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.