IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/dyncon/v34y2010i3p503-521.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Markov-perfect capital and labor taxes

Author

Listed:
  • Martin, Fernando M.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Markov-perfect equilibrium of an economy were a benevolent government that lacks the ability to commit to future policy choices, uses taxes on capital and labor income to finance the provision of a public good. The main finding is that the government taxes capital and subsidizes labor so that only the dynamic inefficiency of future capital taxes remains. If agents' preference for the public good is sufficiently high, then capital is confiscated. Setting bounds on taxes alleviates the dynamic inefficiency inherent in capital taxation, but some implementations carry a high welfare cost. Allowing for endogenous capital utilization makes the current capital tax distortionary and implies capital and labor tax rates that are relatively close to those measured for the U.S. economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin, Fernando M., 2010. "Markov-perfect capital and labor taxes," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 503-521, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:34:y:2010:i:3:p:503-521
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-1889(09)00194-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith, Jr., 2003. "Consumption--Savings Decisions with Quasi--Geometric Discounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 365-375, January.
    2. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 2000. "The role of investment-specific technological change in the business cycle," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 91-115, January.
    3. Barro, Robert J. & Gordon, David B., 1983. "Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 101-121.
    4. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1994. "Optimal Fiscal Policy in a Business Cycle Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 617-652, August.
    5. Phelan, Christopher, 2006. "Public trust and government betrayal," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 27-43, September.
    6. Chari, V V & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1990. "Sustainable Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 783-802, August.
    7. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    8. Benhabib, Jess & Rustichini, Aldo, 1997. "Optimal Taxes without Commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 231-259, December.
    9. Salvador Ortigueira, 2006. "Markov-Perfect Optimal Taxation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(1), pages 153-178, January.
    10. David R. Stockman, 2001. "Balanced-Budget Rules: Welfare Loss and Optimal Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(2), pages 438-459, July.
    11. Paul Klein & Per Krusell & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2004. "Time-Consistent Public Expenditures," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000652, UCLA Department of Economics.
    12. Christopher Phelan, 2001. "Public trust and government betrayal," Staff Report 283, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    13. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    14. Marcet, Albert & Scott, Andrew, 2009. "Debt and deficit fluctuations and the structure of bond markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 473-501, March.
    15. Abreu, Dilip & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1990. "Toward a Theory of Discounted Repeated Games with Imperfect Monitoring," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1041-1063, September.
    16. Judd, Kenneth L., 1985. "Redistributive taxation in a simple perfect foresight model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 59-83, October.
    17. Jones, Larry E. & Manuelli, Rodolfo E. & Rossi, Peter E., 1997. "On the Optimal Taxation of Capital Income," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 93-117, March.
    18. Paul Klein & JosÈ-VÌctor RÌos-Rull, 2003. "Time-consistent optimal fiscal policy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1217-1245, November.
    19. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    20. Zhu, Xiaodong, 1995. "Endogenous capital utilization, investor's effort, and optimal fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 655-677, December.
    21. Zhu, Xiaodong, 1992. "Optimal fiscal policy in a stochastic growth model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 250-289, December.
    22. Christopher Phelan & Ennio Stacchetti, 2001. "Sequential Equilibria in a Ramsey Tax Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1491-1518, November.
    23. Fischer, Stanley, 1980. "Dynamic inconsistency, cooperation and the benevolent dissembling government," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 93-107, May.
    24. Daniel Cohen & Philippe Michel, 1988. "How Should Control Theory Be Used to Calculate a Time-Consistent Government Policy?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 263-274.
    25. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Debt, inflation and central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 129-150.
    2. repec:eee:pubeco:v:154:y:2017:i:c:p:137-159 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Martin, Fernando M., 2011. "On the joint determination of fiscal and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 132-145, March.
    4. Sarolta Laczo & Raffaele Rossi, 2014. "Time-consistent consumption taxation," Working Papers 67495267, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    5. Richard Dennis, 2013. "Asset Prices, Business Cycles, and Markov-Perfect Fiscal Policy when Agents are Risk-Sensitive," CAMA Working Papers 2013-69, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    6. Gervais, Martin & Mennuni, Alessandro, 2015. "Optimal fiscal policy in the neoclassical growth model revisited," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-17.
    7. Fernando M. Martin, 2013. "Government Policy In Monetary Economies," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(1), pages 185-217, February.
    8. Long Xin & Pelloni Alessandra, 2011. "Welfare improving taxation on savings in a growth model," wp.comunite 0091, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    9. Novales, Alfonso & Pérez, Rafaela & Ruiz, Jesus, 2014. "Optimal time-consistent fiscal policy under endogenous growth with elastic labor supply," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 398-412.
    10. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Fiscal policy in a Real-Business-Cycle model with labor-intensive government services and endogenous public sector wages and hours," EconStor Preprints 142338, ZBW - German National Library of Economics.
    11. Nakata, Taisuke, 2016. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy with occasionally binding zero bound constraints," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 220-240.
    12. Benigno, Gianluca & Chen, Huigang & Otrok, Christopher & Rebucci, Alessandro & Young, Eric R., 2016. "Optimal capital controls and real exchange rate policies: A pecuniary externality perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 147-165.
    13. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Jim Malley & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2011. "Time-consistent Fiscal Policy under Heterogeneity: Conflicting or Common Interests?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3444, CESifo Group Munich.
    14. Malte Rieth, 2017. "Capital Taxation and Government Debt Policy with Public Discounting," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1697, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Policy And Welfare Effects Of Within-Period Commitment," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(07), pages 1401-1426, October.
    16. Fernando Martin, 2009. "A Positive Theory of Government Debt," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(4), pages 608-631, October.
    17. Occhino Filippo, 2012. "Government Debt Dynamics Under Discretion," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-28, July.
    18. Marina Azzimonti, 2016. "The Politics of FDI Expropriation," NBER Working Papers 22705, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Novales, Alfonso & Pérez, Rafaela & Ruiz, Jesús, 2014. "Optimal time-consistent fiscal policy in an endogenous growth economy with public consumption and capital," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 104-117.
    20. George Economides & Anastasios Rizos, 2017. "Optimal taxation and the tradeoff between efficiency and redistribution," DEOS Working Papers 1701, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    21. Long, Xin & Pelloni, Alessandra, 2017. "Factor income taxation in a horizontal innovation model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 137-159.
    22. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Jim Malley & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2011. "Time-consistent Fiscal Policy under Heterogeneity: Conflicting or Common Interests?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3444, CESifo Group Munich.
    23. Chien, YiLi & Lee, Junsang, 2016. "Optimal Ramsey Capital Taxation with Endogenous Government Spending," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 98(4), pages 311-327.
    24. repec:eee:dyncon:v:85:y:2017:i:c:p:1-20 is not listed on IDEAS

    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:eee:dyncon:v:34:y:2010:i:3:p:503-521. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.