IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_5265.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Income Taxation when Skills and Behavioral Elasticities are Heterogeneous

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence Jacquet
  • Etienne Lehmann

Abstract

We solve a large class of multidimensional adverse selection problems with one observed action, to derive the nonlinear optimal income tax schedule when individuals differ along multiple unobserved characteristics. Based on a perturbation of the optimal allocation, our method allows individuals to have e.g. different skills and different taxable income elasticities. Our optimal tax formula generalizes the one with only one-dimensional source of heterogeneity and is numerically implementable. We find that, compared to the case where individuals differ only in skills, allowing them to also have heterogeous taxable income elasticities leads to substantially different optimal tax schedules and in particular, different asymptotic tax rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence Jacquet & Etienne Lehmann, 2015. "Optimal Income Taxation when Skills and Behavioral Elasticities are Heterogeneous," CESifo Working Paper Series 5265, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5265.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Chone & Guy Laroque, 2010. "Negative Marginal Tax Rates and Heterogeneity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2532-2547, December.
    2. Peter Diamond & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 165-190, Fall.
    3. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Emmanuel Saez, 2007. "The Optimal Income Taxation of Couples as a Multi-Dimensional Screening Problem," Working Papers 2007-1, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    4. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    5. 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.
    6. Etienne Lehmann & Laurent Simula & Alain Trannoy, 2014. "Tax me if you can! Optimal Nonlinear Income Tax Between Competing Governments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1995-2030.
    7. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Optimal Labor Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 18521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Helmuth Cremer & Jean-Marie Lozachmeur & Pierre Pestieau, 2012. "Income taxation of couples and the tax unit choice," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 763-778, January.
    9. Scheuer, Florian, 2013. "Adverse selection in credit markets and regressive profit taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1333-1360.
    10. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "Optimal Taxation of Labor Income," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00944881, HAL.
    11. Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2016. "Generalized Social Marginal Welfare Weights for Optimal Tax Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 24-45, January.
    12. Robin Boadway & Maurice Marchand & Pierre Pestieau & María Del Mar Racionero, 2002. "Optimal Redistribution with Heterogeneous Preferences for Leisure," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(4), pages 475-498, October.
    13. 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.
    14. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Martin B. Knudsen & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Søren Pedersen & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence From a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 651-692, May.
    15. Jean-Charles Rochet & Philippe Chone, 1998. "Ironing, Sweeping, and Multidimensional Screening," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 783-826, July.
    16. Lockwood, Benjamin B. & Weinzierl, Matthew, 2015. "De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in preferences and optimal redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 74-80.
    17. Jacquet, Laurence & Lehmann, Etienne & Van der Linden, Bruno, 2013. "Optimal redistributive taxation with both extensive and intensive responses," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(5), pages 1770-1805.
    18. Atkinson, A. B., 1990. "Public economics and the economic public," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(2-3), pages 225-248, May.
    19. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2003. "Financing education using optimal redistributive taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2549-2569, October.
    20. Sillamaa, Mary-Anne & Veall, Michael R., 2001. "The effect of marginal tax rates on taxable income: a panel study of the 1988 tax flattening in Canada," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 341-356, June.
    21. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    22. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl, 2010. "The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 155-176, February.
    23. Peter J. Hammond, 1979. "Straightforward Individual Incentive Compatibility in Large Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 46(2), pages 263-282.
    24. Nathaniel Hendren, 2014. "Measuring Economic Efficiency Using Inverse-Optimum Weights," NBER Working Papers 20351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Renato Gomes & Jean-Marie Lozachmeur & Alessandro Pavan, 2018. "Differential Taxation and Occupational Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 511-557.
    26. 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.
    27. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    28. Rochet, J. C., 1985. "The taxation principle and multi-time Hamilton-Jacobi equations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 113-128, April.
    29. Robin Boadway & Pierre Pestieau, 2006. "Tagging and redistributive taxation," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 83-84, pages 123-147.
    30. repec:adr:anecst:y:2006:i:83-84:p:05 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Jean-Charles Rochet & Lars A. Stole, 2002. "Nonlinear Pricing with Random Participation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(1), pages 277-311.
    32. Helmuth Cremer & Firouz Gahvari & Jean-Marie Lozachmeur, 2010. "Tagging and Income Taxation: Theory and an Application," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 31-50, February.
    33. 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.
    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. MANIQUET, François & NEUMANN, Dirk, 2016. "Well-Being, Poverty and Labor Income Taxation: Theory and Application to Europe and the U.S," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2016029, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. Spencer Bastani & Jacob Lundberg, 2017. "Political preferences for redistribution in Sweden," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 345-367, December.
    3. Islam, Nizamul & Colombino, Ugo, 2018. "The case for NIT+FT in Europe. An empirical optimal taxation exercise," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 38-69.
    4. Jacobs, Bas & Jongen, Egbert L.W. & Zoutman, Floris T., 2017. "Revealed social preferences of Dutch political parties," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 81-100.
    5. Aart Gerritsen, 2016. "Optimal Nonlinear Taxation: The Dual Approach," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2016-02, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    6. Aart Gerritsen, 2015. "Optimal Taxation when People Do Not Maximize Well-Being," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2015-07, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.

    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. Laurence Jacquet & Etienne Lehmann, 2021. "Optimal Income Taxation with Composition Effects," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 1299-1341.
    2. Laurence Jacquet & Etienne Lehmann, 2023. "Optimal tax problems with multidimensional heterogeneity: a mechanism design approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(1), pages 135-164, January.
    3. Laurence JACQUET & Etienne LEHMANN, 2014. "Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxation with Multidimensional Types: The Case with Heterogeneous Behavioral Responses," THEMA Working Papers 2014-01, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. Weinzierl, Matthew, 2014. "The promise of positive optimal taxation: normative diversity and a role for equal sacrifice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 128-142.
    5. Doligalski, Paweł & Rojas, Luis E., 2023. "Optimal redistribution with a shadow economy," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(2), May.
    6. Jacquet, Laurence & Lehmann, Etienne & Van der Linden, Bruno, 2013. "Optimal redistributive taxation with both extensive and intensive responses," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(5), pages 1770-1805.
    7. Erwin Ooghe & Andreas Peichl, 2015. "Fair and Efficient Taxation under Partial Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(589), pages 2024-2051, December.
    8. Felix Bierbrauer, 2016. "Effizienz oder Gerechtigkeit? Ungleiche Einkommen, ungleiche Vermögen und die Theorie der optimalen Besteuerung," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_03, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    9. Bierbrauer Felix J., 2016. "Effizienz oder Gerechtigkeit?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 2-24, April.
    10. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2015. "Designing efficient college and tax policies," Working Papers 15-09, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    11. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Lipatov, Vilen & Zoubek, J. Malte, 2020. "Optimal taxation under regional inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Lockwood, Benjamin B. & Weinzierl, Matthew, 2016. "Positive and normative judgments implicit in U.S. tax policy, and the costs of unequal growth and recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 30-47.
    13. Laurence Jacquet & Robin Boadway, Craig Brett, 2015. "Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxes with Compensation," THEMA Working Papers 2015-15, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    14. Dominik Sachs & Sebastian Findeisen, 2016. "Optimal Financial Aid Policies for Students," 2016 Meeting Papers 1421, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Johannes Hermle & Andreas Peichl, 2018. "Jointly Optimal Taxes for Different Types of Income," CESifo Working Paper Series 7248, CESifo.
    16. Gerritsen, Aart, 2016. "Optimal taxation when people do not maximize well-being," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 122-139.
    17. Casey Rothschild & Florian Scheuer, 2014. "A Theory of Income Taxation under Multidimensional Skill Heterogeneity," NBER Working Papers 19822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Henry de Frahan, Lancelot & Maniquet, François, 2021. "Preference responsibility versus poverty reduction in the taxation of labor incomes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    19. Jacobs, Bas & Jongen, Egbert L.W. & Zoutman, Floris T., 2017. "Revealed social preferences of Dutch political parties," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 81-100.
    20. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    optimal taxation; multidimensional screening problems;

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

    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:_5265. 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.