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Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods

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Author Info
Blumkin, Tomer
Ruffle , Bradley J.
Ganun , Yosef

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Abstract

The public finance literature demonstrates the equivalence between consumption and labor income (wage) taxes. We construct an environment in which individuals make real labor-leisure choices and spend their earned income on real goods. We use this experimental framework to test whether a labor income tax and an equivalent consumption tax lead to an identical labor-leisure allocation. Despite controlling for subjects' work ability and inherent labor-leisure preferences and not allowing for saving, subjects reduce their labor supply significantly more in response to an income tax than they do in response to an equivalent consumption tax. We discuss the economic implications of a policy shift from an income to a consumption tax.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 6479.

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Date of creation: 28 Dec 2007
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:6479

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Related research
Keywords: experimental economics tax equivalence income tax consumption tax behavioral economics

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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