IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1440.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Case for Taxing Education

Author

Listed:
  • Tomer Blumkin
  • Efraim Sadka

Abstract

We illustrate a novel informational feature of education, which the government may utilize. Discretionary decisions of individuals to acquire education may serve as an additional signal (to earned labor income) on the underlying unobserved innate earning ability, thereby mitigating the informational constraint faced by the government. We establish a case for taxing education, as a supplement to the labor income tax.

Suggested Citation

  • Tomer Blumkin & Efraim Sadka, 2005. "A Case for Taxing Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 1440, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1440.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Heckman, 2011. "Policies to foster human capital," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 73-137.
    2. Ulph, David, 1977. "On the optimal distribution of income and educational expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 341-356, December.
    3. Robin Boadway & Nicolas Marceau & Maurice Marchand, 1992. "Investment in Education and the Time Inconsistency of Redistributive Tax Policy," Working Paper 860, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    4. Razin,Assaf & Sadka,Efraim, 2001. "Labor, Capital, and Finance," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521785570, January.
    5. Pedro Carneiro & James J. Heckman, 2002. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post--secondary Schooling," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 705-734, October.
    6. Deaton, Angus, 1981. "Optimal Taxes and the Structure of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(5), pages 1245-1260, September.
    7. 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.
    8. Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice, 1995. "The Use of Public Expenditures for Redistributive Purposes," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 45-59, January.
    9. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2003. "Financing education using optimal redistributive taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2549-2569, October.
    10. Eckstein, Zvi & Zilcha, Itzhak, 1994. "The effects of compulsory schooling on growth, income distribution and welfare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 339-359, July.
    11. Gradstein, Mark, 2000. "An economic rationale for public education: The value of commitment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 463-474, April.
    12. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1994. "Unemployment, wage rigidity, and the returns to education," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 535-543, April.
    13. Barham, Vicky & Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice & Pestieau, Pierre, 1995. "Education and the poverty trap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1257-1275, August.
    14. Tuomala, Matti, 1986. "On the optimal income taxation and educational decisions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 183-198, July.
    15. Barham, Vicky & Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice & Pestieau, Pierre, 1995. "Education and the poverty trap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1257-1275, August.
    16. Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 205-229.
    17. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    18. Deaton, Angus, 1979. "Optimally uniform commodity taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-361.
    19. Diamond, Peter A, 1998. "Optimal Income Taxation: An Example with a U-Shaped Pattern of Optimal Marginal Tax Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 83-95, March.
    20. Boadway, Robin & Marceau, Nicolas & Marchand, Maurice, 1996. "Investment in Education and the Time Inconsistency of Redistributive Tax Policy," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(250), pages 171-189, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Gonzales-Eiras, Martín & Niepelt, Dirk, 2004. "Sustaining Social Security," Seminar Papers 731, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    2. Tomer Blumkin & Efraim Sadka, 2008. "A case for taxing education," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(2), pages 145-163, April.

    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. Tomer Blumkin & Efraim Sadka, 2008. "A case for taxing education," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(2), pages 145-163, April.
    2. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2003. "Financing education using optimal redistributive taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2549-2569, October.
    3. Tim Lohse & Peter Lutz & Christian Thomann, 2013. "Redistributional consequences of early childhood intervention," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(3), pages 373-381, June.
    4. Robin Boadway, 2011. "Viewpoint: Innovations in the theory and practice of redistribution policy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 1138-1183, November.
    5. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2018. "Pareto efficient taxation and expenditures: Pre- and re-distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 101-119.
    6. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and public finance," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 1-6.
    7. Berthold U. Wigger, 2001. "Higher Education Financing and Income Redistribution," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 58(1), pages 48-59, December.
    8. Lans Bovenberg, A. & Jacobs, Bas, 2005. "Redistribution and education subsidies are Siamese twins," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2005-2035, December.
    9. Frank Kupferschmidt & Berthold U. Wigger, 2006. "Öffentliche versus private Finanzierung der Hochschulbildung: Effizienz‐ und Verteilungsaspekte," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(2), pages 285-307, May.
    10. Chaitali Sinha, 2014. "Human Capital and Public Policy," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 3(1), pages 79-125, June.
    11. Bas Jacobs, 2013. "Optimal redistributive tax and education policies in general equilibrium," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(2), pages 312-337, April.
    12. 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.
    13. Pertti Haaparanta & Ravi Kanbur & Tuuli Paukkeri & Jukka Pirttilä & Matti Tuomala, 2022. "Promoting education under distortionary taxation: equality of opportunity versus welfarism," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(2), pages 281-297, June.
    14. Boadway,Robin & Cuff,Katherine, 2022. "Tax Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108949453.
    15. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A., 2005. "Union Strategy and Optimal Income Taxation," IZA Discussion Papers 1545, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Casey Rothschild & Florian Scheuer, 2013. "Redistributive Taxation in the Roy Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 623-668.
    17. Bas Jacobs & A. Bovenberg, 2010. "Human capital and optimal positive taxation of capital income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(5), pages 451-478, October.
    18. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A., 2006. "Union strategy and optimal direct taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 393-402, January.
    19. Alan Krause, 2009. "Education and Taxation Policies in the Presence of Countervailing Incentives," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(302), pages 387-399, April.
    20. Gian Maria Tomat, 2018. "The elasticity of personal income: evidence from survey data," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(2), pages 433-462, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    optimal taxation; re-distribution; education; inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - 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:ces:ceswps:_1440. 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.