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Direct versus indirect taxation: the design of the tax structure revisited

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Author Info
CREMER, Helmuth
PESTIEAU, Pierre
ROCHET, Jean-Charles

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Abstract

This paper studies the optimal direct/indirect tax mix in a setting where individuals differ in several unobservable characteristics (productivity and endowments). Tax instruments (income and commodity taxes) are constrained solely by the information structure. It presents general expressions for the optimal commodity tax rates and proves that contrary to Atkinson and Stiglitz's (1976) result, differential commodity taxation remains a useful instrument of optimal tax policy even if preferences are separable between labor and produced goods. The following, more specific, results are also derived. First, when cross substitution effects are small the expressions resemble traditional (many households) Ramsey rules. Second, if differences in endowments are confined to some of the goods, the tax rate on goods in which endowments are zero is positively related to income elasticity. Finally, in a Cobb-Douglas illustration with two goods, where endowments differ only in good 1 (and are interpreted as "wealth"), the tax on good 2 provides an indirect way to tax the unobservable wealth. It is higher (i) the more significant are the wealth differentials, (ii) the stronger is the correlation between wealth and earning ability and (iii) the larger are the (political) weights attached to low wealth individuals.

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Paper provided by Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) in its series CORE Discussion Papers with number 1999010.

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Date of creation: 01 Feb 1999
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Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:1999010

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  1. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 1995. "Uncertainty, Optimal Taxation and the Direct versus Indirect Tax Controversy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1165-79, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. J. A. Mirrlees, 1976. "Optimal Tax Theory: A Synthesis," Working papers 176, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  4. A. B. Atkinson, 1977. "Optimal Taxation and the Direct versus Indirect Tax Controversy," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 10(4), pages 590-606, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Pareto efficient and optimal taxation and the new new welfare economics," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 991-1042 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Louis Kaplow, 2004. "On the Undesirability of Commodity Taxation Even When Income Taxation is Not Optimal," NBER Working Papers 10407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Johann K. Brunner, 2003. "Optimale direkte und indirekte Steuern bei unterschiedlicher Anfangsausstattung," Economics working papers 2003-10, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. [Downloadable!]
  3. Clément Carbonnier, 2005. "Is Tax Shifting Asymmetric? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1995-2000," PSE Working Papers 2005-34, PSE (Ecole normale supérieure). [Downloadable!]
  4. Costa, Carlos Eugênio da, 2005. "Yet Another Reason to Tax Goods," Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 596, Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Louis Kaplow, 2006. "Optimal Control of Externalities in the Presence of Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 12339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Jordahl, Henrik & Micheletto, Luca, 2002. "Optimal Utilitarian Taxation and Horizontal Equity," Ratio Working Papers 17, The Ratio Institute. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Helmuth Cremer & ) & Pierre Pestieau, 2004. "Wealth Trasfer Taxation: A Survey," Public Economics 0401004, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Ulrike Vogelgesang & Ulrike Ludden, 1999. "Optimal Capital Income Taxation and Redistribution," GK working paper series 1999-10, Post Graduate Programme "Allocation on Financial Markets", University of Mannheim, revised Apr 2000. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Martin Hellwig, 2004. "Optimal Income Taxation, Public-Goods Provision and Public-Sector Pricing: A Contribution to the Foundations of Public Economics," Working Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2004_14, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods. [Downloadable!]
  10. Robin Boadway & Pierre Pestieau, 2006. "Tagging and Redistributive Taxation," Working Papers 1071, Queen's University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Koen Burggraeve & Philip Du Caju, 2003. "The labour market and fiscal impact of labour reductions: the case of reduction of employers' social security contributions under a wage norm regime with automatic price indexing of wages," Research series 200303-1, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
  12. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1999. "Capital Income Taxation when Inherited wealth is not Observable," IDEI Working Papers 109, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised 2001. [Downloadable!]
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