IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfm/wpaper/1508.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Time-Consistent Consumption Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Sarolta Laczó

    () (Bank of England
    Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM))

  • Raffaele Rossi

    () (Department of Economics Management School Lancaster University)

Abstract

We characterise optimal fiscal policies in a Real Business Cycle model when the government has access to consumption taxation but cannot credibly commit to future policies. Contrary to the case where only labour and capital income are taxed, the optimal time-consistent policies are remarkably similar to their Ramsey counterparts, as long as the capital income tax causes some distortion within the period. The welfare gains from commitment are negligible, while they are substantial without consumption taxation. Further, the welfare gains from taxing consumption are much higher without commitment. These results suggest that the policy-maker's ability to commit is of secondary importance if consumption is taxed optimally.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarolta Laczó & Raffaele Rossi, 2015. "Time-Consistent Consumption Taxation," Discussion Papers 1508, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    • Handle: RePEc:cfm:wpaper:1508
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.centreformacroeconomics.ac.uk/Discussion-Papers/2015/CFMDP2015-08-Paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Domeij & Martin Floden, 2006. "The Labor-Supply Elasticity and Borrowing Constraints: Why Estimates are Biased," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), pages 242-262, April.
    2. Emmanuel Farhi & Gita Gopinath & Oleg Itskhoki, 2014. "Fiscal Devaluations," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 725-760.
    3. 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.
    4. Giorgio Motta & Raffaele Rossi, 2019. "Optimal Fiscal Policy with Consumption Taxation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 139-161, February.
    5. Karen Kopecky & Richard Suen, 2010. "Finite State Markov-chain Approximations to Highly Persistent Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 701-714, July.
    6. 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.
    7. E. Paul Durrenberger, 2012. "Labour," Chapters, in: James G. Carrier (ed.),A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, Second Edition, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Trabandt, Mathias & Uhlig, Harald, 2011. "The Laffer curve revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 305-327.
    9. Albert Marcet & Ramon Marimon, 2019. "Recursive Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(5), pages 1589-1631, September.
    10. Ramon Marimon, 2011. "New Results in Recursive Contract Theory," 2011 Meeting Papers 752, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes & Pierre Yared, 2017. "Optimal Time-Consistent Government Debt Maturity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 132(1), pages 55-102.
    12. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    13. Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal redistributive capital taxation in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 423-453, September.
    14. Karel Mertens & Morten Overgaard Ravn, 2011. "Understanding the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated Tax Policy Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(1), pages 27-54, January.
    15. 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.
    16. ColemanII, Wilbur John, 2000. "Welfare and optimum dynamic taxation of consumption and income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 1-39, April.
    17. Isabel Correia & Emmanuel Farhi & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Pedro Teles, 2013. "Unconventional Fiscal Policy at the Zero Bound," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1172-1211, June.
    18. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    19. Azzimonti, Marina & Sarte, Pierre-Daniel & Soares, Jorge, 2009. "Distortionary taxes and public investment when government promises are not enforceable," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1662-1681, September.
    20. Mathias Trabandt & Harald Uhlig, 2012. "How Do Laffer Curves Differ across Countries?," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 211-249, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Leslie J. Reinhorn, 2019. "On optimal redistributive capital taxation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(3), pages 460-487, June.
    22. Galindev, Ragchaasuren & Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2010. "Discretization of highly persistent correlated AR(1) shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1260-1276, July.
    23. J. Stephen Ferris, 2013. "Fiscal policy," Chapters, in: William F. Shughart II & Laura Razzolini & Michael Reksulak (ed.),The Elgar Companion to Public Choice, Second Edition, chapter 16, pages 260-283, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    24. Isabel Correia, 2010. "Consumption Taxes and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1673-1694, September.
    25. 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.
    26. Mathias Trabandt & Harald Uhlig, 2012. "How Do Laffer Curves Differ across Countries?," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 211-249, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Ludwig Straub & Iván Werning, 2014. "Positive Long Run Capital Taxation: Chamley-Judd Revisited," NBER Working Papers 20441, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-417, June.
    29. Nezih Guner & Remzi Kaygusuz & Gustavo Ventura, 2012. "Taxation and Household Labour Supply," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1113-1149.
    30. 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.
    31. Mario J. Miranda & Paul L. Fackler, 2004. "Applied Computational Economics and Finance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633094, September.
    32. Xavier Mateos-Planas, 2010. "Demographics and the Politics of Capital Taxation in a Life-Cycle Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 337-363, March.
    33. Giorgio Motta & Raffaele Rossi, 2013. "Ramsey monetary and fiscal policy: the role of consumption taxation," Working Papers 44449031, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    34. Debortoli, Davide & Nunes, Ricardo, 2010. "Fiscal policy under loose commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1005-1032, May.
    35. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes, 2013. "Lack Of Commitment And The Level Of Debt," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(5), pages 1053-1078, October.
    36. Martin, Fernando M., 2010. "Markov-perfect capital and labor taxes," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 503-521, March.
    37. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1972. "The structure of indirect taxation and economic efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 97-119, April.
    38. Paul Klein & Per Krusell & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2008. "Time-Consistent Public Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(3), pages 789-808.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Time-Consistent Consumption Taxation
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2018-05-13 03:44:28

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. George Economides & Anastasios Rizos, 2018. "Optimal Taxation and the Tradeoff Between Efficiency and Redistribution," Review of Economic Analysis, Digital Initiatives at the University of Waterloo Library, vol. 10(1), pages 1-43, January.
    2. Alejandro Forcades, 2019. "The optimal tax mix with underground labor," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(1), pages 214-222.
    3. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2018. "Optimal fiscal policy with utility-enhancing government spending, consumption taxation and a common income tax rate: the case of Bulgaria," EconStor Open Access Articles, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 43-58.
    4. George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos & Anastasios Rizos, 2020. "Optimal tax policy under tax evasion," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(2), pages 339-362, April.
    5. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2018. "Optimal fiscal policy with Epstein-Zin preferences and utility-enhancing government services: lessons from Bulgaria (1999-2016)," EconStor Preprints 183134, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal Policy; Markov-perfect Policies; Consumption Taxation; Variable Capital Utilisation; Endogenous Government Spending;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cfm:wpaper:1508. 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: (Martin Hannon). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/cmlseuk.html .

    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.