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Commodity taxes and taste heterogeneity

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  • Gauthier, Stéphane
  • Henriet, Fanny

Abstract

We study optimal linear commodity taxes in the presence of non-linear income taxes when agents differ in skills and tastes for consumption. We show that optimal commodity taxes are partly determined by a many-person Ramsey rule when there is taste heterogeneity within income classes. The usual role of commodity taxes in relaxing incentive constraints explains the remaining part of these taxes when there is taste heterogeneity between income classes. We quantify these two parts using French consumption microdata and find that commodities taxes are only shaped by many-person Ramsey considerations.

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  • Gauthier, Stéphane & Henriet, Fanny, 2018. "Commodity taxes and taste heterogeneity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 284-296.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:101:y:2018:i:c:p:284-296
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.10.017
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    2. Hellwig, Christian & Werquin, Nicolas, 2022. "Using Consumption Data to Derive Optimal Income and Capital Tax Rates," TSE Working Papers 22-1284, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jul 2024.
    3. Stéphane Gauthier & Fanny Henriet, 2023. "Targeting Taxes on Local Externalities," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 151, pages 1-36.
    4. Antoine Ferey & Benjamin B. Lockwood & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2024. "Sufficient Statistics for Nonlinear Tax Systems with General Across-Income Heterogeneity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(10), pages 3206-3249, October.
    5. Spencer Bastani & Sebastian Koehne, 2022. "How Should Consumption Be Taxed?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10038, CESifo.
    6. Hunt Allcott & Benjamin B Lockwood & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2019. "Regressive Sin Taxes, with an Application to the Optimal Soda Tax," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1557-1626.
    7. Alain Babatounde & Bart Capeau & Romain Houssa, 2023. "Welfare effects of indirect tax policies in West Africa," DeFiPP Working Papers 2301, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    8. Feger, Fabian & Radulescu, Doina, 2020. "When environmental and redistribution concerns collide: The case of electricity pricing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taste heterogeneity; Commodity taxes; Income taxation; Social valuations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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