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Public Provision of Private Goods and Nondistortionary Marginal Tax Rates

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Author Info
Blomquist, Sören () (Department of Economics)
Christiansen, Vidar () (Department of Economics)
Abstract

The incidence and efficiency losses of taxes have usually been analysed in isolation from public expenditures. This negligence of the expenditure side may imply a serious misperception of the effects of marginal tax rates. The reason is that part of the marginal tax may in fact be payment for publicly provided commodities and reflect a cost that the consumers should bear in order to face the right incentives. Hence, part of the marginal tax serves the same role as a market price in the sense that it conveys information about a real social marginal cost of working more hours. We develop this idea formally by studying an optimal income tax model in combination with a type of public provision scheme not analyzed before; the provision level is individualized and positively associated with the individuals’ labour supply. As examples we discuss day care, elderly care, primary education and health care. We show that there is a gain in efficiency if public provision of such a service replaces market purchases. We also show that it is necessary for efficiency that marginal income tax rates are higher than in economies where the services are purchased in the market. This is because the optimal tax should be designed so as to face the taxpayers with the real cost of providing the services. Hence, it might very well be that economies with higher marginal tax rates have less severe distortions than economies with lower marginal tax rates. We also explore whether an efficiency gain is achievable by alternatively making day care expenses tax deductible and derive a negative conclusion.

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Paper provided by Uppsala University, Department of Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number 2007:7.

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Length: 17 pages
Date of creation: 12 Jan 2007
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Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2007_007

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Related research
Keywords: Marginal income tax; public provision; private goods; in-kind transfer; tax deductions;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

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References listed on IDEAS
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Carlsson, Mikael & Lyhagen, Johan & Österholm, Pär, 2007. "Testing for Purchasing Power Parity in Cointegrated Panels," Working Paper Series 2008:1, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Liang, Che-Yuan, 2007. "Is There an Incumbency Advantage or a Cost of Ruling in Proportional Election Systems?," Working Paper Series 2007:28, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Liang, Che-Yuan, 2008. "Collective Lobbying in Politics: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Sweden," Working Paper Series 2008:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alexius, Annika & Holmlund, Bertil, 2007. "Monetary Policy and Swedish Unemployment Fluctuations," Working Paper Series 2007:17, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Beechey, Meredith & Österholm, Pär, 2007. "The Rise and Fall of U.S. Inflation Persistence," Working Paper Series 2007:18, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Joan Esteban, 2007. "Redistributive Taxation and PublicExpenditures," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 95, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Ohlsson, Henry, 2007. "The legacy of the Swedish gift and inheritance tax, 1884–2004," Working Paper Series 2007:23, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Hanming Fang & Peter Norman, 2008. "Toward an Efficiency Rationale for the Public Provision of Private Goods," NBER Working Papers 13827, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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