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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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  • Blumkin, Tomer
  • Ruffle, Bradley J.
  • Ganun, Yosef

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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Bibliographic Info

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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Keywords: experimental economics; tax equivalence; income tax; consumption tax; behavioral economics;

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2008. "Tax Salience, Voting, and Deliberation," Working Papers 2009-25, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck.
  2. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and taxation: theory and evidence," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-11, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  3. Sielaff, Christian, 2011. "Steuerkomplexität und Arbeitsangebot: Eine experimentelle Analyse," Discussion Papers 2011/13, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
  4. Casoria, Fortuna & Riedl, Arno, 2012. "Experimental Labor Markets and Policy Considerations: Incomplete Contracts and Macroeconomic Aspects," IZA Discussion Papers 7102, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  5. James Alm & Asmaa El-Ganainy, 2013. "Value-added taxation and consumption," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 105-128, February.
  6. Joel Slemrod, 2009. "Old George Orwell Got it Backward: Some Thoughts on Behavioral Tax Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 2777, CESifo Group Munich.
  7. Fochmann, Martin & Kiesewetter, Dirk & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2012. "Investment behavior and the biased perception of limited loss deduction in income taxation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 230-242.
  8. Raj Chetty, 2009. "The Simple Economics of Salience and Taxation," NBER Working Papers 15246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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