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Pareto-Improving Bequest Taxation

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  • Grossmann, Volker

    () (University of Fribourg)

  • Poutvaara, Panu

    () (University of Munich)

Abstract

Altruistic parents may transfer resources to their offspring by providing education, and by leaving bequests. We show that in the presence of wage taxation, a small bequest tax may improve efficiency in an overlapping-generations framework with only intended bequests, by enhancing incentives of parents to invest in their children’s education. This result holds even if the wage tax rate is held constant when introducing bequest taxation. We also calculate an optimal mix of wage and bequest taxes with alternative parameter combinations. In all cases, the optimal wage tax rate is clearly higher than the optimal bequest tax rate, but the latter is generally positive when the required government revenue in the economy is sufficiently high.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 2277.

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Length: 35 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2006
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: International Tax and Public Finance, 2009, 16 (5), 647-669
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2277

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Keywords: bequest taxation; bequests; education; Pareto improvement;

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Michel Beine & Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2008. "The impact of FX Central Bank Intervention in a Noise Trading Framework," CREA Discussion Paper Series 08-15, Center for Research in Economic Analysis, University of Luxembourg.
  2. Carlo Altavilla & Paul De Grauwe, 2005. "Non-Linearities in the Relation between the Exchange Rate and its Fundamentals," CESifo Working Paper Series 1561, CESifo Group Munich.
  3. Bossmann, Martin & Kleiber, Christian & Walde, Klaus, 2007. "Bequests, taxation and the distribution of wealth in a general equilibrium model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1247-1271, August.
  4. Stefano STAFFOLANI & Enzo VALENTINI, 2006. "Bequest Taxation, allocation of talents, education and efficiency," Working Papers 248, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
  5. Staffolani, Stefano & Valentini, Enzo, 2007. "Bequest taxation and efficient allocation of talents," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 648-672, July.

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