IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v122y2015icp31-39.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal taxation in a habit formation economy

Author

Listed:
  • Koehne, Sebastian
  • Kuhn, Moritz

Abstract

This paper studies habit formation in consumption preferences in a dynamic Mirrlees economy. We derive optimal labor and savings wedges based on a recursive approach. We show that habit formation creates a motive for subsidizing labor supply and savings. In particular, habit formation invalidates the well-known “no distortion at the top” result. We demonstrate that the theoretical findings are quantitatively important: in a parametrized life-cycle model, average labor and savings wedges fall by more than one-third compared with the case of time-separable preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Koehne, Sebastian & Kuhn, Moritz, 2015. "Optimal taxation in a habit formation economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 31-39.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:122:y:2015:i:c:p:31-39
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.12.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272714002539
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.12.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johnsen, Thore H & Donaldson, John B, 1985. "The Structure of Intertemporal Preferences under Uncertainty and Time Consistent Plans," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1451-1458, November.
    2. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre, 2011. "Myopia, redistribution and pensions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 165-175, February.
    3. Diaz, Antonia & Pijoan-Mas, Josep & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2003. "Precautionary savings and wealth distribution under habit formation preferences," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1257-1291, September.
    4. Christopher Phelan & Robert M. Townsend, 1991. "Computing Multi-Period, Information-Constrained Optima," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(5), pages 853-881.
    5. Jody Overland & Christopher D. Carroll & David N. Weil, 2000. "Saving and Growth with Habit Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 341-355, June.
    6. Sebastian Koehne & Nicola Pavoni & Arpad Abraham, 2011. "Optimal Income Taxation with Asset Accumulation," 2011 Meeting Papers 1161, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Clark, Andrew E., 1999. "Are wages habit-forming? evidence from micro data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 179-200, June.
    8. Bohacek, Radim & Kapicka, Marek, 2008. "Optimal human capital policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Abel, Andrew B, 1990. "Asset Prices under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 38-42, May.
    10. Stephen E. Spear & Sanjay Srivastava, 1987. "On Repeated Moral Hazard with Discounting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(4), pages 599-617.
    11. Hansen, G D, 1993. "The Cyclical and Secular Behaviour of the Labour Input: Comparing Efficiency Units and Hours Worked," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 71-80, Jan.-Marc.
    12. Stefania Albanesi & Christopher Sleet, 2006. "Dynamic Optimal Taxation with Private Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(1), pages 1-30.
    13. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 2005. "Zero Expected Wealth Taxes: A Mirrlees Approach to Dynamic Optimal Taxation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(5), pages 1587-1621, September.
    14. Mikhail Golosov & Narayana Kocherlakota & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2003. "Optimal Indirect and Capital Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 569-587.
    15. Grochulski, Borys & Piskorski, Tomasz, 2010. "Risky human capital and deferred capital income taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 908-943, May.
    16. Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2006. "Designing Optimal Disability Insurance: A Case for Asset Testing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 257-279, April.
    17. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    18. Maxim Troshkin & Aleh Tsyvinski & Mikhail Golosov, 2010. "Optimal Dynamic Taxes," 2010 Meeting Papers 320, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Grochulski, Borys & Kocherlakota, Narayana, 2010. "Nonseparable preferences and optimal social security systems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2055-2077, November.
    20. Heien, Dale & Durham, Cathy, 1991. "A Test of the Habit Formation Hypothesis Using Household Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(2), pages 189-199, May.
    21. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    22. Farhi, Emmanuel & Werning, Iván, 2008. "Optimal savings distortions with recursive preferences," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 21-42, January.
    23. Diamond, P. A. & Mirrlees, J. A., 1978. "A model of social insurance with variable retirement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 295-336, December.
    24. Emmanuel Farhi, 2013. "Insurance and Taxation over the Life Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(2), pages 596-635.
    25. Fernandes, Ana & Phelan, Christopher, 2000. "A Recursive Formulation for Repeated Agency with History Dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 223-247, April.
    26. George Messinis, 1999. "Habit Formation and the Theory of Addiction," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 417-442, September.
    27. Constantinides, George M, 1990. "Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 519-543, June.
    28. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 1995. "Uncertainty and optimal taxation: In defense of commodity taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 291-310, February.
    29. Marek Kapicka, 2013. "Efficient Allocations in Dynamic Private Information Economies with Persistent Shocks: A First-Order Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 1027-1054.
    30. repec:bla:jecsur:v:13:y:1999:i:4:p:417-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "Repeated Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 69-76, January.
    32. Cremer Helmuth & De Donder Philippe & Maldonado Dario & Pestieau Pierre, 2010. "Commodity Taxation under Habit Formation and Myopia," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, September.
    33. Diaz, Antonia & Pijoan-Mas, Josep & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2003. "Precautionary savings and wealth distribution under habit formation preferences," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1257-1291, September.
    34. Stern, Nicholas, 1982. "Optimum taxation with errors in administration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 181-211, March.
    35. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumption and Its Implications for Monetary-Policy Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 367-390, June.
    36. Feldstein, Martin, 1973. "On the optimal progressivity of the income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-376.
    37. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1982. "Self-selection and Pareto efficient taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 213-240, March.
    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. Thomas Aronsson & Ronnie Schöb, 2022. "Habit formation and the pareto-efficient provision of public goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(3), pages 669-681, October.
    2. Winfried Koeniger & Julien Prat, 2018. "Human Capital and Optimal Redistribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 27, pages 1-26, January.
    3. Gerasimos T SOLDATOS, 2015. "Indirect Tax Incidence under Inelastic Underground Economy Demand," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 7(3), pages 56-62.
    4. Hyun Park, 2019. "Endogenous Growth and Equilibrium Cycles under Altruistic and Envious Preferences," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 35, pages 307-344.
    5. Soldatos, Gerasimos, 2014. "Indirect Tax Incidence under Inelastic Underground Economy Demand," MPRA Paper 64598, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Inge van den Bijgaart, 2018. "Too Slow a Change? Deep Habits, Consumption Shifts and Transitory Tax Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 6958, CESifo.
    7. Gamannossi degl’Innocenti, Duccio & Rablen, Matthew D., 2020. "Tax evasion on a social network," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 79-91.
    8. Laszlo Goerke, 2020. "An Efficiency-Wage Model with Habit Concerns about Wages," CESifo Working Paper Series 8428, CESifo.
    9. Laszlo Goerke, 2021. "Habit formation and wage determination," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 61-76, January.
    10. Hellwig, Christian, 2021. "Static and Dynamic Mirrleesian Taxation with Non-separable Preferences: A Unified Approach," TSE Working Papers 21-1224, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    11. Soldatos, Gerasimos T., 2015. "Tax Aversion, Laffer Curve, and the Self-financing of Tax Cuts," MPRA Paper 62470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. van den Bijgaart, Inge, 2016. "Essays in environmental economics and policy," Other publications TiSEM 298bee2a-cb08-4173-9fe1-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. van den Bijgaart, I.M., 2017. "Too slow a change? Deep habits, consumption shifts and transitory tax," Working Papers in Economics 701, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Koehne, Sebastian & Kuhn, Moritz, 2013. "Optimal capital taxation for time-nonseparable preferences," MPRA Paper 45203, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Abdoulaye Ndiaye, 2017. "Flexible Retirement and Optimal Taxation," Working Paper Series WP-2018-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2016. "Education and optimal dynamic taxation: The role of income-contingent student loans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 1-21.
    4. Slavík, Ctirad & Yazici, Hakki, 2014. "Machines, buildings, and optimal dynamic taxes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 47-61.
    5. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2020. "Dynamic Taxation," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 801-831, August.
    6. Sebastian Koehne & Nicola Pavoni & Arpad Abraham, 2011. "Optimal Income Taxation with Asset Accumulation," 2011 Meeting Papers 1161, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2014. "Positional preferences in time and space: Optimal income taxation with dynamic social comparisons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1-23.
    8. van den Bijgaart, I.M., 2017. "Too slow a change? Deep habits, consumption shifts and transitory tax," Working Papers in Economics 701, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    9. Inge van den Bijgaart, 2018. "Too Slow a Change? Deep Habits, Consumption Shifts and Transitory Tax Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 6958, CESifo.
    10. Anderberg, Dan, 2009. "Optimal policy and the risk properties of human capital reconsidered," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1017-1026, October.
    11. Golosov, M. & Tsyvinski, A. & Werquin, N., 2016. "Recursive Contracts and Endogenously Incomplete Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 725-841, Elsevier.
    12. van den Bijgaart, Inge, 2016. "Essays in environmental economics and policy," Other publications TiSEM 298bee2a-cb08-4173-9fe1-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. J. C. Parra & M. Huggett, 2005. "Quantifying the Inefficiency of the US Social Security System," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 70, Society for Computational Economics.
    14. Mikhail Golosov & Maxim Troshkin & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2011. "Optimal Taxation: Merging Micro and Macro Approaches," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 147-174, August.
    15. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 2010. "Introduction," Introductory Chapters, in: The New Dynamic Public Finance, Princeton University Press.
    16. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2017. "Optimal Taxation and Human Capital Policies over the Life Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 1931-1990.
    17. Bierbrauer Felix J., 2016. "Effizienz oder Gerechtigkeit?: Ungleiche Einkommen, ungleiche Vermögen und Optimale Steuern," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 2-24, April.
    18. Johdo, Wataru, 2009. "Habit persistence and stagnation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1110-1114, September.
    19. Laurence Ales & Maziero Pricila, "undated". "Accounting for Private Information," GSIA Working Papers 2010-E58, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    20. Grochulski, Borys & Kocherlakota, Narayana, 2010. "Nonseparable preferences and optimal social security systems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2055-2077, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal taxation; Habit formation; Recursive contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:pubeco:v:122:y:2015:i:c:p:31-39. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.