IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/12029.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Short-run Distributional Effects of VAT Rate Change: Evidence from a consumption tax rate increase in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • David CASHIN
  • UNAYAMA Takashi

Abstract

Households will purchase more items than usual prior to a value added tax (VAT) rate increase in order to avoid taxation. Since this type of arbitrage requires resources such as shopping time and storage space, the impacts of tax increases vary across households, which has brought distributional effects in the short-run. Using the case of a consumption tax rate increase in Japan in 1997, we show that households who are non-working, with non-working spouses and residing in larger houses, benefited from more arbitrage. To minimize short-run economic disturbances, step-by-step increases would be useful.

Suggested Citation

  • David CASHIN & UNAYAMA Takashi, 2012. "Short-run Distributional Effects of VAT Rate Change: Evidence from a consumption tax rate increase in Japan," Discussion papers 12029, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:12029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/12e029.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas F. Crossley & Hamish Low & Matthew Wakefield, 2009. "The Economics of a Temporary VAT Cut," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 3-16, March.
    2. Horioka, Charles Yuji, 1990. "Why is Japan's household saving rate so high? A literature survey," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 49-92, March.
    3. Chah, Eun Young & Ramey, Valerie A & Starr, Ross M, 1995. "Liquidity Constraints and Intertemporal Consumer Optimization: Theory and Evidence from Durable Goods," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 272-287, February.
    4. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2012. "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated US Tax Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 145-181, May.
    5. Melvin Stephens & Takashi Unayama, 2011. "The Consumption Response to Seasonal Income: Evidence from Japanese Public Pension Benefits," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 86-118, October.
    6. David CASHIN & UNAYAMA Takashi, 2011. "The Intertemporal Substitution and Income Effects of a VAT Rate Increase: Evidence from Japan," Discussion papers 11045, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. Ishi, Hiromitsu, 2001. "The Japanese Tax System," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 3, number 9780199242566.
    8. Watanabe, Katsunori & Watanabe, Takayuki & Watanabe, Tsutomu, 2001. "Tax policy and consumer spending: evidence from Japanese fiscal experiments," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 261-281, April.
    9. Christopher L. House & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2008. "Temporary Investment Tax Incentives: Theory with Evidence from Bonus Depreciation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 737-768, June.
    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. Jana Stavjaňová, 2014. "Value Added Tax Gap in the Czech Republic," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 62(6), pages 1427-1436.
    2. Christopher E. Boehm, 2016. "Government Spending and Durable Goods," CESifo Working Paper Series 6244, CESifo.
    3. Wenbin Wu, 2022. "Sales of Durable Goods and the Real Effects of Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 80-92, January.
    4. Thomas Crossley & Hamish Low & Cath Sleeman, 2014. "Using a temporary indirect tax cut as a fiscal stimulus: evidence from the UK," IFS Working Papers W14/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Yasuyuki Komaki, 2021. "Economic Effects of Change in the Value-Added Tax Rate in Europe: Implications for the Japanese Economy," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 17(2), pages 1-30, November.

    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. David CASHIN & UNAYAMA Takashi, 2011. "The Intertemporal Substitution and Income Effects of a VAT Rate Increase: Evidence from Japan," Discussion papers 11045, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. David Cashin & Takashi Unayama, 2016. "Measuring Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption: Evidence from a VAT Increase in Japan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 285-297, May.
    3. David Cashin & Jamie Lenney & Byron Lutz & William Peterman, 2018. "Fiscal policy and aggregate demand in the USA before, during, and following the Great Recession," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(6), pages 1519-1558, December.
    4. David B. Cashin, 2017. "The Household Expenditure Response to a Consumption Tax Rate Increase," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-035, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Nadia Belhaj Hassine-Belghith, 2007. "Exporting , Productive Efficiency and Product Quality: An Empirical Analysis Of the Agricultural Sector in the Mediterranean Countries," Working Papers 711, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jan 2007.
    6. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Uhl, 2017. "Taxation and consumption: evidence from a representative survey of the German population," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(53), pages 5477-5490, November.
    7. Horioka, Charles Yuji, 2020. "Does the Selfish Life-Cycle Model Apply in the Case of Japan?," AGI Working Paper Series 2020-04, Asian Growth Research Institute.
    8. Karel Mertens & Morten Overgaard Ravn, 2011. "Understanding the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated Tax Policy Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(1), pages 27-54, January.
    9. Ruhollah Eskandari & Morteza Zamanian, 2023. "Heterogeneous responses to corporate marginal tax rates: Evidence from small and large firms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1018-1047, November.
    10. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2021. "Is the selfish life-cycle model more applicable in Japan and, if so, why? A literature survey," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 157-187, March.
    11. Irfan Ahmed & Claudio Socci & Francesca Severini & Rosita Pretaroli, 2019. "Fiscal policy for households and public budget constraint in Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 36(1), pages 19-35, April.
    12. UNAYAMA Takashi & KOMURA Norihiro & HATTORI Takahiro, 2021. "Impacts of Cash Transfers on Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Japanese Special Cash Payment (Japanese)," Discussion Papers (Japanese) 21022, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Sims, Eric & Wolff, Jonathan, 2018. "The state-dependent effects of tax shocks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 57-85.
    14. Büttner, Thiess & Madzharova, Boryana, 2017. "The Effects of Pre-announced Consumption Tax Reforms on the Sales and Prices of Consumer Durables," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168201, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Karel Mertens & Morten Overgaard Ravn, 2011. "Understanding the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated Tax Policy Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(1), pages 27-54, January.
    16. Adam Copeland & George Hall & Louis J. Maccini, 2019. "Interest Rates and the Market for New Light Vehicles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(5), pages 1137-1168, August.
    17. Thomas Crossley & Hamish Low & Cath Sleeman, 2014. "Using a temporary indirect tax cut as a fiscal stimulus: evidence from the UK," IFS Working Papers W14/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    18. Jing Cai & Ann Harrison, 2021. "Industrial Policy in China: Some Intended or Unintended Consequences?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 163-198, January.
    19. Yongzheng Liu & Jie Mao, 2019. "How Do Tax Incentives Affect Investment and Productivity? Firm-Level Evidence from China," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 261-291, August.
    20. Alan J. Auerbach & William G. Gale, 2009. "Activist fiscal policy to stabilize economic activity," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 327-374.

    More about this item

    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:eti:dpaper:12029. 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: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.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.