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Tax Structure, Growth and Welfare in the UK

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  • Konstantinos Angelopoulos
  • Jim Malley
  • Apostolis Philippopoulos

Abstract

This paper studies the quantitative implications of changes in the composition of taxes for long-run growth and expected lifetime utility in the UK economy over 1970-2005. Our setup is a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model incorporating a detailed fiscal policy structure, and whose engine of endogenous growth is human capital accumulation. The government’s spending instruments include public consumption, investment and education spending. On the revenue side, labour, capital and consumption taxes are employed. Our results suggest that if the goal of tax policy is to promote long-run growth by altering relative tax rates, then it should reduce labour taxes while simultaneously increasing capital or consumption taxes to make up for the loss in labour tax revenue. In contrast, a welfare promoting policy would be to cut capital taxes, while concurrently increasing labour or consumption taxes to make up for the loss in capital tax revenue.

Suggested Citation

  • Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Jim Malley & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2008. "Tax Structure, Growth and Welfare in the UK," Working Papers 2008_05, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Apr 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2008_05
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    Cited by:

    1. Hatcher, Michael, 2014. "Indexed versus nominal government debt under inflation and price-level targeting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 126-145.
    2. CPB Netherlands & CAPP, 2013. "Study on the Impacts of Fiscal Devaluation," Taxation Papers 36, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    3. Ioannis Bournakis & Sushanta Mallick & David Kernohan & Dimitris A.Tsouknidis, 2013. "Measuring Firm-Level Productivity Convergence in the UK: The Role of Taxation and R&D Investment," Working Papers 45, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    4. Angelopoulos, Konstantinos & Jiang, Wei & Malley, James R., 2013. "Tax reforms under market distortions in product and labour markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 28-42.
    5. Chia-Hui Lu, 2015. "Optimal fiscal policies in an economy with externalities from public spending," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 211-228, November.
    6. Hassan Molana & Catia Montagna & George E. Onwordi, 2021. "De-Globalization, Welfare State Reforms and Labor Market Outcomes," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(4), pages 624-655, December.
    7. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Bernardo X. Fernandez & James Malley, 2010. "The distributional consequences of supply-side reforms in general equilibrium," Working Papers 2010_26, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Jun 2012.
    8. Economides, George & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Vassilatos, Vanghelis, 2014. "Public, or private, providers of public goods? A dynamic general equilibrium study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 303-327.
    9. George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos & Stylianos Sakkas, 2021. "Redistributive policies in general equilibrium," JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis 2021-08, Joint Research Centre.
    10. Michael, Hatcher, 2013. "Aggregate and welfare effects of long run inflation risk under inflation and price-level targeting," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-19, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    11. George Economides & Dimitris Papageorgiou & Apostolis Philippopoulos & Vanghelis Vassilatos, 2013. "Smaller Public Sectors in the Euro Area: Aggregate and Distributional Implications," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 59(3), pages 536-558, September.
    12. Durusu-Ciftci, Dilek & Gokmenoglu, Korhan K. & Yetkiner, Hakan, 2018. "The heterogeneous impact of taxation on economic development: New insights from a panel cointegration approach," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 503-513.
    13. Sorana Vatavu & Oana-Ramona Lobont & Petru Stefea & Daniel Brindescu-Olariu, 2019. "How Taxes Relate to Potential Welfare Gain and Appreciable Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-16, July.
    14. Mura Petru-Ovidiu, 2015. "Tax Composition And Economic Growth. A Panel-Model Approach For Eastern Europe," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 89-101, February.
    15. James Malley & Apostolis Philippopoulos & Jim Malley, 2023. "Stimulating Long-Term Growth and Welfare in the U.S," CESifo Working Paper Series 10658, CESifo.
    16. Papageorgiou, Dimitris, 2012. "Fiscal policy reforms in general equilibrium: The case of Greece," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 504-522.
    17. Dimitris Papageorgiou, 2009. "Macroeconomic Implications of Alternative Tax Regimes: The Case of Greece," Working Papers 97, Bank of Greece.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal policy; Economic growth; Welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

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