IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ula/econom/v36y2011i31p9-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal taxation and borrowing constraints

Author

Listed:
  • Nathalie Mathieu-Bolh

    (Department of Economics, University of Vermont, 94, University Place, Burlington, VT 05405 United State of America.)

Abstract

I propose a new overlapping generations model, in which individuals face different income levels, life expectancies and borrowing constraints to study Ramsey optimal taxation. Contrary to previous contributions, I find that optimal capital income taxation generally differs from zero in the long term even when preferences are additively separable. I also find that the tax system should generally incorporate a progressive capital income tax in the long run. Furthermore, the model enables to disentangle the respective roles of finite life horizons, productivity differences and borrowing limits.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathalie Mathieu-Bolh, 2011. "Optimal taxation and borrowing constraints," Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (IIES). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales. Universidad de Los Andes. Mérida, Venezuela, vol. 36(31), pages 9-53, January-j.
    • Handle: RePEc:ula:econom:v:36:y:2011:i:31:p:9-53
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://iies.faces.ula.ve/Pdf/Revista31/Rev31Mathieu-Bolh.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Gregory Mankiw, 2000. "The Savers-Spenders Theory of Fiscal Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 120-125, May.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Abhijit Banerjee & Thomas Piketty, 1999. "Dualism and Macroeconomic Volatility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1359-1397.
    3. Jean‐Marie Lozachmeur, 2006. "Optimal Age‐Specific Income Taxation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(4), pages 697-711, October.
    4. Bovenberg, A. Lans & van Ewijk, Casper, 1997. "Progressive taxes, equity, and human capital accumulation in an endogenous growth model with overlapping generations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 153-179, May.
    5. Calvo, Guillermo A & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1988. "Optimal Time-Consistent Fiscal Policy with Finite Lifetimes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 411-432, March.
    6. Carlos Garriga, 2019. "Optimal Fiscal Policy in Overlapping Generations Models," Public Finance Review, , vol. 47(1), pages 3-31, January.
    7. Juan Carlos Conesa & Sagiri Kitao & Dirk Krueger, 2009. "Taxing Capital? Not a Bad Idea after All!," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 25-48, March.
    8. Mathieu-Bolh, Nathalie, 2006. "Optimal taxation and finite horizon," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 215-221, May.
    9. James Feigenbaum, 2006. "Precautionary Saving Unfettered," Working Paper 227, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2006.
    10. Chamley, Christophe, 2001. "Capital income taxation, wealth distribution and borrowing constraints," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 55-69, January.
    11. Suzanne Duryea, 1998. "Children's Advancement Through School in Brazil: The Role of Transitory Shocks to Household Income," Research Department Publications 4124, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Pirttila, Jukka & Tuomala, Matti, 2001. "On optimal non-linear taxation and public good provision in an overlapping generations economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 485-501, March.
    13. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    14. Steve Ambler, 2000. "Optimal Time Consistent Fiscal Policy with Overlapping Generations," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 111, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    15. Suzanne Duryea, 1998. "Children's Advancement Through School in Brazil: The Role of Transitory Shocks to Household Income," Research Department Publications 4124, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    16. Chamley, Christophe, 1985. "Efficient Taxation in a Stylized Model of Intertemporal General Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(2), pages 451-468, June.
    17. James Feigenbaum, 2006. "Precautionary Saving Unfettered," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 29, Society for Computational Economics.
    18. Bernardi, Luigi & Fraschini, Angela, 2005. "Tax system and tax reforms in India," POLIS Working Papers 45, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    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. Nathalie Mathieu-Bolh, 2011. "Optimal Taxation and Income Mobility with Borrowing Limits," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(3), pages 393-428, May.

    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. Nathalie Mathieu-Bolh, 2011. "Optimal Taxation and Income Mobility with Borrowing Limits," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(3), pages 393-428, May.
    2. Krueger, Dirk & Ludwig, Alexander & Villalvazo, Sergio, 2021. "Optimal taxes on capital in the OLG model with uninsurable idiosyncratic income risk," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    3. Long Xin & Pelloni Alessandra, 2011. "Welfare improving taxation on savings in a growth model," wp.comunite 0091, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    4. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2018. "How should capital be taxed? The Swedish experience," Working Papers hal-02878153, HAL.
    5. Waldenstrom, Daniel & Bastani, Spencer, 2018. "How Should Capital Be Taxed? Theory and Evidence from Sweden," CEPR Discussion Papers 12880, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Ambler, Steve, 1999. "Les modèles à agent représentatif et la politique de taxation optimale," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(4), pages 539-557, décembre.
    7. Gerhard Glomm & Juergen Jung, 2013. "The Timing of Redistribution," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 50-80, July.
    8. Stefania Albanesi & Roc Armenter, 2012. "Intertemporal Distortions in the Second Best," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1271-1307.
    9. Biljanovska, Nina & Vardoulakis, Alexandros P., 2019. "Capital taxation with heterogeneous discounting and collateralized borrowing," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 97-109.
    10. Günther Rehme, 2023. "Capital depreciation allowances, redistributive taxation, and economic growth," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(1), pages 168-195, February.
    11. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl & Danny Yagan, 2009. "Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 147-174, Fall.
    12. Angelopoulos, Konstantinos & Fernandez, Bernardo X. & Malley, James R., 2010. "The Distributional Consequences of Supply-Side Reforms in General Equilibrium," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-85, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    13. Chen, Been-Lon & Lu, Chia-Hui, 2013. "Optimal factor tax incidence in two-sector human capital-based models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 75-94.
    14. Garcia Penalosa, Cecilia & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2005. "Second-best optimal taxation of capital and labor in a developing economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 1045-1074, June.
    15. Koskela Erkki & Thadden Leopold von, 2008. "Optimal Factor Taxation under Wage Bargaining: A Dynamic Perspective," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 135-159, May.
    16. Gerhard Glomm & Juergen Jung, 2013. "The Timing of Redistribution," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 50-80, July.
    17. Till Gross, 2013. "Capital Taxation, Intermediate Goods, and Production Efficiency," Carleton Economic Papers 13-09, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    18. Baltasar Manzano & Jesús Ruiz, 2004. "Política fiscal óptima: el estado de la cuestión," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 28(1), pages 5-41, January.
    19. Conesa, Juan Carlos & Krueger, Dirk, 2006. "On the optimal progressivity of the income tax code," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1425-1450, October.
    20. William B. Peterman & Erick Sager, 2022. "Optimal Public Debt with Life Cycle Motives," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 404-437, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal taxation; borrowing constraints; overlapping generations.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • 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:ula:econom:v:36:y:2011:i:31:p:9-53. 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: Alexis Vásquez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iiulave.html .

    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.