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Optimal Income Taxation when Skills and Behavioral Elasticities are Heterogeneous

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  • Laurence Jacquet
  • Etienne Lehmann

Abstract

We solve a large class of multidimensional adverse selection problems with one observed action, to derive the nonlinear optimal income tax schedule when individuals differ along multiple unobserved characteristics. Based on a perturbation of the optimal allocation, our method allows individuals to have e.g. different skills and different taxable income elasticities. Our optimal tax formula generalizes the one with only one-dimensional source of heterogeneity and is numerically implementable. We find that, compared to the case where individuals differ only in skills, allowing them to also have heterogeous taxable income elasticities leads to substantially different optimal tax schedules and in particular, different asymptotic tax rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence Jacquet & Etienne Lehmann, 2015. "Optimal Income Taxation when Skills and Behavioral Elasticities are Heterogeneous," CESifo Working Paper Series 5265, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5265
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Spencer Bastani & Jacob Lundberg, 2017. "Political preferences for redistribution in Sweden," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 345-367, December.
    2. Islam, Nizamul & Colombino, Ugo, 2018. "The case for NIT+FT in Europe. An empirical optimal taxation exercise," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 38-69.
    3. MANIQUET, François & NEUMANN, Dirk, 2016. "Well-Being, Poverty and Labor Income Taxation: Theory and Application to Europe and the U.S," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2016029, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    4. Jacobs, Bas & Jongen, Egbert L.W. & Zoutman, Floris T., 2017. "Revealed social preferences of Dutch political parties," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 81-100.
    5. Aart Gerritsen, 2016. "Optimal Nonlinear Taxation: The Dual Approach," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2016-02, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    6. Aart Gerritsen, 2015. "Optimal Taxation when People Do Not Maximize Well-Being," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2015-07, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    optimal taxation; multidimensional screening problems;

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

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