IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4252.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Lifetime Incidence of State and Local Taxes: Measuring Changes During the 1980s

Author

Listed:
  • Gilbert E. Metcalf

Abstract

I compute the lifetime tax incidence of the major state and local taxes used in the United States during the 1980s. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, I show that over the life cycle, general sales taxes are progressive and equally as progressive as state and local income taxes. While the progressivity of sales taxes has not changed between 1984 and 1989, income taxes have become less progressive over that five-year period. Property taxes on the other hand have become more progressive. The system of state and local taxes is mildly progressive the life cycle and has become slightly more progressive between 1984 and 1989. Finally. eliminating deductibility for sales taxes in 1986 appears to have had little effect on the overall progressivity of the tax system.

Suggested Citation

  • Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1993. "The Lifetime Incidence of State and Local Taxes: Measuring Changes During the 1980s," NBER Working Papers 4252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4252
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4252.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James M. Poterba, 1991. "Is the Gasoline Tax Regressive?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 145-164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lusardi, A., 1993. "Euler Equations in Micro Data; Merging Data form Two Samples," Papers 9304, Tilburg - Center for Economic Research.
    3. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 706-732, August.
    4. Suits, Daniel B, 1977. "Measurement of Tax Progressivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 747-752, September.
    5. Hamilton, Bruce W, 1976. "Capitalization of Intrajurisdictional Differences in Local Tax Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(5), pages 743-753, December.
    6. David M. Cutler & Lawrence F. Katz, 1991. "Macroeconomic Performance and the Disadvantaged," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 1-74.
    7. Davies, James B & St-Hilaire, France & Whalley, John, 1984. "Some Calculations of Lifetime Tax Incidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 633-649, September.
    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. Francesca Gastaldi & Paolo Liberati & Elena Pisano & Simone Tedeschi, 2014. "Progressivity-Improving VAT Reforms in Italy," Working papers 6, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    2. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    3. Parry, Ian W.H. & Sigman, Hilary & Walls, Margaret & Williams, Roberton C., III, 2005. "The Incidence of Pollution Control Policies," Discussion Papers 10651, Resources for the Future.
    4. Gilbert E. Metcalf & Don Fullerton, 2002. "The Distribution of Tax Burdens: An Introduction," NBER Working Papers 8978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Walls, Margaret & Hanson, Jean, 1999. "Distributional Aspects of an Environmental Tax Shift: The Case of Motor Vehicle Emissions Taxes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 1), pages 53-65, March.
    6. Francesca Gastaldi & Paolo Liberati & Elena Pisano & Simone Tedeschi, 2017. "Regressivity-Reducing VAT Reforms," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 10(1), pages 39-72.
    7. Wadud, Zia & Noland, Robert B. & Graham, Daniel J., 2010. "A semiparametric model of household gasoline demand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 93-101, January.
    8. repec:ijm:journl:v109:y:2017:i:1:p:39-72 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Walls, Margaret & Hanson, Jean, 1996. "Distributional Impacts of an Environmental Tax Shift: The Case of Motor Vehicle Emissions Taxes," Discussion Papers 10895, Resources for the Future.
    10. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1994. "Life Cycle versus Annual Perspectives on the Incidence of a Value Added Tax," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 8, pages 45-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Wier, Mette & Birr-Pedersen, Katja & Jacobsen, Henrik Klinge & Klok, Jacob, 2005. "Are CO2 taxes regressive? Evidence from the Danish experience," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 239-251, January.

    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. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    2. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1994. "Life Cycle versus Annual Perspectives on the Incidence of a Value Added Tax," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 8, pages 45-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Caspersen, Erik & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 1994. "Is a Value Added Tax Regressive? Annual Versus Lifetime Incidence Measures," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(4), pages 731-746, December.
    4. Lyon, Andrew B & Schwab, Robert M, 1995. "Consumption Taxes in a Life-Cycle Framework: Are Sin Taxes Regressive?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(3), pages 389-406, August.
    5. Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2012. "Identifying the Disadvantaged: Official Poverty, Consumption Poverty, and the New Supplemental Poverty Measure," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 111-136, Summer.
    6. Hubbard, R. Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1994. "The importance of precautionary motives in explaining individual and aggregate saving," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 59-125, June.
    7. You-Yi Guo & Jin-Xu Lin & Shih-Mo Lin, 2022. "The Distribution Effects of a Carbon Tax on Urban and Rural Households in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    8. West, Sarah E., 2004. "Distributional effects of alternative vehicle pollution control policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 735-757, March.
    9. Rausch, Sebastian & Metcalf, Gilbert E. & Reilly, John M., 2011. "Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: A general equilibrium approach with micro-data for households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(S1), pages 20-33.
    10. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2009. "Market-Based Policy Options to Control U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 5-27, Spring.
    11. Teixidó, Jordi J. & Verde, Stefano F., 2017. "Is the Gasoline Tax Regressive in the Twenty-First Century? Taking Wealth into Account," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 109-125.
    12. Berry, Audrey, 2019. "The distributional effects of a carbon tax and its impact on fuel poverty: A microsimulation study in the French context," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 81-94.
    13. Yingxu Kuang & Ted Englebrecht & Otis W. Gilley, 2011. "A Distributional Analysis of the FairTax Plan: Annual and Lifetime Income Considerations," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(2), pages 358-381, October.
    14. Don Fullerton & Diane Lim Rogers, 1994. "Distributional Effects on a Lifetime Basis," NBER Working Papers 4862, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Verde, Stefano F. & Pazienza, Maria Grazia, 2016. "Energy and climate hand-in-hand: Financing RES-E support with carbon revenues," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 234-244.
    16. G. C. Ruggeri & K. Bluck, 1990. "On the Incidence of the Manufacturers' Sales Tax and the Goods and Services Tax," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 16(4), pages 359-373, December.
    17. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 2002. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 47-89, January.
    18. Walls, Margaret & Hanson, Jean, 1996. "Distributional Impacts of an Environmental Tax Shift: The Case of Motor Vehicle Emissions Taxes," Discussion Papers 10895, Resources for the Future.
    19. Leah Platt Boustan & Fernando Ferreira & Hernan Winkler & Eric Zolt, 2010. "Income Inequality and Local Government in the United States, 1970-2000," NBER Working Papers 16299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Selden, Thomas M. & Wasylenko, Michael J., 1992. "Benefit incidence analysis in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1015, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence

    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:nbr:nberwo:4252. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.