IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/16616.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capital and Labor Taxes with Costly State Contingency

Author

Listed:
  • Clymo, Alex
  • Lanteri, Andrea
  • Villa, Alessandro

Abstract

We analyze optimal capital and labor taxes in a model where (i) the government makes noncontingent announcements about future policies and (ii) ex-post state-contingent deviations from these announcements are costly. With Full Commitment, optimal fiscal announcements are unbiased forecasts of future taxes. Costly state contingency dampens the response of both current and future capital taxes to government spending shocks, because the government uses announcements about future taxes to stimulate current output. Labor taxes play a major role in accommodating fiscal shocks. This mechanism allows the model to successfully match the empirical volatility of tax rates. In the absence of Full Commitment, optimal fiscal announcements are strategically biased. Costly state contingency generates an endogenous degree of fiscal commitment, leading to a positive, but low average capital tax---approximately 8% in our calibrated model.

Suggested Citation

  • Clymo, Alex & Lanteri, Andrea & Villa, Alessandro, 2022. "Capital and Labor Taxes with Costly State Contingency," CEPR Discussion Papers 16616, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16616
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP16616
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Salvador Ortigueira & Joana Pereira, 2022. "Lack of Commitment, Retroactive Taxation, and Macroeconomic Instability," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 264-311.
    2. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    3. Susan Athey & Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005. "The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(5), pages 1431-1475, September.
    4. Marina Halac & Pierre Yared, 2014. "Fiscal Rules and Discretion Under Persistent Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 1557-1614, September.
    5. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2012. "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated US Tax Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 145-181, May.
    6. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    7. Jones, John Bailey, 2002. "Has fiscal policy helped stabilize the postwar U.S. economy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 709-746, May.
    8. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2013. "Credit Shocks and Aggregate Fluctuations in an Economy with Production Heterogeneity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(6), pages 1055-1107.
    9. Alesina, Alberto & Favero, Carlo & Giavazzi, Francesco, 2015. "The output effect of fiscal consolidation plans," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 19-42.
    10. Burnside, Craig & Eichenbaum, Martin & Fisher, Jonas D. M., 2004. "Fiscal shocks and their consequences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 89-117, March.
    11. Elisa Faraglia & Albert Marcet & Rigas Oikonomou & Andrew Scott, 2019. "Government Debt Management: The Long and the Short of It," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(6), pages 2554-2604.
    12. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Emmanuel Farhi, 2010. "Capital Taxation and Ownership When Markets Are Incomplete," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(5), pages 908-948.
    15. David R. Stockman, 2001. "Balanced-Budget Rules: Welfare Loss and Optimal Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(2), pages 438-459, July.
    16. den Haan, Wouter J & Marcet, Albert, 1990. "Solving the Stochastic Growth Model by Parameterizing Expectations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(1), pages 31-34, January.
    17. S. Rao Aiyagari & Albert Marcet & Thomas J. Sargent & Juha Seppala, 2002. "Optimal Taxation without State-Contingent Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1220-1254, December.
    18. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 1997. "Balanced-Budget Rules, Distortionary Taxes, and Aggregate Instability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 976-1000, October.
    19. Judd, Kenneth L., 1985. "Redistributive taxation in a simple perfect foresight model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 59-83, October.
    20. Anmol Bhandari & Ellen R McGrattan, 2021. "Sweat Equity in U.S. Private Business," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(2), pages 727-781.
    21. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    22. Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad: Evidence from US Historical Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 850-901.
    23. Maliar, Lilia & Maliar, Serguei, 2003. "Parameterized Expectations Algorithm and the Moving Bounds," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 21(1), pages 88-92, January.
    24. Debortoli, Davide & Nunes, Ricardo, 2010. "Fiscal policy under loose commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1005-1032, May.
    25. Martin, Fernando M., 2010. "Markov-perfect capital and labor taxes," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 503-521, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Alex Clymo & Andrea Lanteri & Alessandro Villa, 2023. "Capital and Labor Taxes with Costly State Contingency," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 943-964, December.
    2. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Fiscal policy in a Real-Business-Cycle model with labor-intensive government services and endogenous public sector wages and hours," EconStor Preprints 142338, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Essays on Real Business Cycle Modeling and the Public Sector," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 130522, January.
    4. Pierre-Edouard Collignon, 2021. "No Regret Fiscal Reforms," Working Papers 2021-20, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    5. Fotiou, Alexandra & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2020. "The fiscal state-dependent effects of capital income tax cuts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    6. Leonardo Melosi & Francesco Zanetti, 2022. "The Signaling Effects of Fiscal Announcements," Working Paper Series WP 2022-38, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2013. "On the cost of rent-seeking by government bureaucrats in a Real-Business-Cycle framework," Working Papers 2013_20, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    8. Mario Alloza & Jesús Gonzalo & Carlos Sanz, 2025. "Dynamic Effects of Persistent Shocks," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(4), pages 380-394, June.
    9. U. Devrim Demirel, 2020. "Labor Market Effects of Tax Changes in Times of High and Low Unemployment: Working Paper 2020-05," Working Papers 56522, Congressional Budget Office.
    10. Jochen Mankart & Romanos Priftis & Rigas Oikonomou, 2022. "The long and short of financing government spending," Working Paper Research 418, National Bank of Belgium.
    11. Rieth, Malte, 2017. "Capital taxation and government debt policy with public discounting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-20.
    12. Anh D. M. Nguyen & Luisanna Onnis & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Income and Consumption Tax Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 439-466, May.
    13. Karel Mertens & José Luis Montiel Olea, 2018. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1803-1884.
    14. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    15. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    16. Zhigang Feng, 2015. "Time‐consistent optimal fiscal policy over the business cycle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(1), pages 189-221, March.
    17. Dabla-Norris, Era & Lima, Frederico, 2023. "Macroeconomic effects of tax rate and base changes: Evidence from fiscal consolidations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    18. Daragh Clancy, 2019. "US corporate tax rate cuts: Spillovers to the Irish economy," Working Papers 38, European Stability Mechanism.
    19. van der Wielen, Wouter, 2020. "The macroeconomic effects of tax changes: Evidence using real-time data for the European Union," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 302-321.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:cpr:ceprdp:16616. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.