IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fer/dpaper/203.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the Composition of Wage and Payroll Taxes Matter Under Nash Bargaining?

Author

Listed:
  • Koskela, Erkki
  • Schöb, Ronnie

Abstract

Using the Nash bargaining approach to wage negotiations this paper shows that conventional wisdom, according to which the total tax wedge is the sum of wage and payroll taxes, is valid for equal tax bases, e.g., when the tax exemption takes the form of a tax credit. However, the equivalence result ceases to hold when the tax bases are unequal due to tax allowances. In this case a revenue-neutral restructuring of labour taxes toward a narrower tax base decreases the gross wage and is thus good for employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Koskela, Erkki & Schöb, Ronnie, 1999. "Does the Composition of Wage and Payroll Taxes Matter Under Nash Bargaining?," Discussion Papers 203, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:fer:dpaper:203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/148374
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173, Decembrie.
    2. Koskela, Erkki & Vilmunen, Jouko, 1996. "Tax progression is good for employment in popular models of trade union behaviour," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 65-80, August.
    3. Lockwood, Ben & Manning, Alan, 1993. "Wage setting and the tax system theory and evidence for the United Kingdom," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 1-29, August.
    4. Holm, Pasi & Honkapohja, Seppo & Koskela, Erkki, 1994. "A monopoly-union model of wage determination with capital and taxes: An empirical application to the Finnish manufacturing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 285-303, February.
    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. Daniel Cardona & Fernando Sánchez-Losada, 2004. "The Unemployment Benefit System: a Redistributive or an Insurance Institution?," DEA Working Papers 8, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    2. Koskela, Erkki & Vilmunen, Jouko, 1994. "Monopoly unions, corporatism and optimal structure of labour taxation," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 17/1994, Bank of Finland.
    3. Erkki Koskela & Ronnie Schöb, 2002. "Alleviating Unemployment: The Case for Green Tax Reforms," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 20, pages 355-378, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Bertil Holmlund, 2002. "Labor Taxation in Search Equilibrium with Home Production," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(4), pages 415-430, November.
    5. Pia Rattenhuber, 2012. "Marginal Taxes: A Good or a Bad for Wages?: The Incidence of the Structure of Income and Labor Taxes on Wages," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1193, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Albert Jan Hummel & Bas Jacobs, 2018. "Optimal Income Taxation in Unionized Labor Markets," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 18-064/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Bohringer, Christoph & Boeters, Stefan & Feil, Michael, 2005. "Taxation and unemployment: an applied general equilibrium approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 81-108, January.
    8. Ronnie Schöb, 2003. "The Double Dividend Hypothesis of Environmental Taxes: A Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 946, CESifo.
    9. Seppo Honkapohja & Erkki Koskela, 1999. "The economic crisis of the 1990s in Finland," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 14(29), pages 400-436.
    10. Hummel, Albert Jan & Jacobs, Bas, 2023. "Optimal income taxation in unionized labor markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    11. Forslund, Anders & Gottfries, Nils & Westermark, Andreas, 2005. "Real and nominal wage adjustment in open economies," Working Paper Series 2005:23, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    12. Boeters, Stefan, 2002. "Tax Progressivity and the Trade Union's Fallback-Option," ZEW Discussion Papers 02-15, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1994_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Aronsson, Thomas & Wikström, Magnus, 2011. "Optimal Tax Progression: Does it Matter if Wage Bargaining is Centralized or Decentralized?," Umeå Economic Studies 829, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    15. Koskela, Erkki & Vilmunen, Jouko, 1994. "Monopoly unions, corporatism and optimal structure of labour taxation," Research Discussion Papers 17/1994, Bank of Finland.
    16. Nymoen, Ragnar & Rodseth, Asbjorn, 2003. "Explaining unemployment: some lessons from Nordic wage formation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, February.
    17. repec:dgr:rugccs:200409 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Hansen, Claus Thustrup & Pedersen, Lars Haagen & Slok, Torsten, 2000. "Ambiguous effects of tax progressivity -- theory and Danish evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 335-347, May.
    19. Martin Weiss, 2009. "Higher Tax Rates on Labor? Evidence from German Panel Data," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 65(1), pages 73-92, March.
    20. Jukka Lassila, 2000. "Wage formation by majority voting and the incentive effects of pensions and taxation," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 89-115, Autumn.
    21. Feil, Michael & Klinger, Sabine & Zika, Gerd, 2006. "Sozialabgaben und Beschäftigung : Simulationen mit drei makroökonomischen Modellen," IAB-Discussion Paper 200622, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    22. Heijdra, Ben J. & Ligthart, Jenny E., 2004. "Labor tax reform and equilibrium unemployment: a search and matching approach," CCSO Working Papers 200409, University of Groningen, CCSO Centre for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax wedge; payroll tax; wage tax; wage bargaining; non-equivalence; Labour market; Työmarkkinat; Taxation; Verotus; Effectiveness of public services; Julkisten palvelujen vaikuttavuus; H200 - Taxation; Subsidies; and Revenue: General; J510 - Trade Unions: Objectives; Structure; and Effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    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:fer:dpaper:203. 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: Anita Niskanen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vatttfi.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.