This paper analyzes features of perfect taxation also known as optimal taxation when one or more private markets is imperfectly competitive. Governments with perfect information and access to lump-sum taxes can provide corrective subsidies that render outcomes efficient in the presence of imperfect competition. Relaxing either of these two conditions removes the government's ability to support efficient resource allocation and changes the perfect policy response. When governments cannot use lump-sum taxes, perfect tax policies represent compromises between the benefits of subsidizing output in the imperfectly competitive sectors of the economy and the costs of imposing higher taxes elsewhere. This tradeoff is formally identical for ad valorem and specific taxes, even though ad valorem taxation is welfare superior to specific taxation in the presence of imperfect competition. When governments have uncertain knowledge of the degree of competition in product markets, perfect corrective tax policy is generally of smaller magnitude than that when the degree of competition is known with certainty.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
8138.
Length: Date of creation: Feb 2001 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8138
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Auerbach, Alan J. & Hines, James Jr., 2002.
"Taxation and economic efficiency,"
Handbook of Public Economics,
in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 21, pages 1347-1421
Elsevier.
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