IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/ipppap/halshs-03364050.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax Reforms and Political Feasibility

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Bierbrauer

    (Université de Cologne)

  • Pierre C Boyer

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IPP - Institut des politiques publiques)

  • Andrew Lonsdale

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Andreas Peichl

    (LMU - Ludwig Maximilian University [Munich] = Ludwig Maximilians Universität München)

Abstract

Questions linked to the design and implementation of redistributive tax policies have occupied a growing position on the public agenda over recent years. Moreover, the fiscal pressures brought upon by the current coronavirus crisis will ensure that these issues maintain considerable political significance for years to come. In light of this importance, we present novel research on reforms of income tax systems. Our approach shows that tax reforms wherein the changes in individual tax burdens are larger for taxpayers with higher incomes are of particular interest. We denote such reforms as "monotonic" and show that, under this condition, it is possible to determine the "winners" and "losers" of a given tax reform. One can then conclude whether the monotonic reform is politically feasible, depending on whether a majority of individuals will benefit financially from the policy. An empirical analysis of tax reforms with a focus on the United States and France reveals that past reforms have, by and large, been monotonic. Our approach therefore enables us to test whether a given tax system admits a politically feasible reform and has direct policy relevance for the common types of taxation reforms undertaken by government authorities.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Bierbrauer & Pierre C Boyer & Andrew Lonsdale & Andreas Peichl, 2021. "Tax Reforms and Political Feasibility," Institut des Politiques Publiques halshs-03364050, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:ipppap:halshs-03364050
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03364050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03364050/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre C. Boyer & Thomas Delemotte & Germain Gauthier & Vincent Rollet & Benoît Schmutz, 2019. "Le territoire des gilets jaunes," Institut des Politiques Publiques halshs-02520737, HAL.
    2. Mathias André & Malka Guillot, 2014. "1914-2014: one hundred years of income tax in France," Institut des Politiques Publiques halshs-02527014, HAL.
    3. Anna, Petrenko, 2016. "Мaркування готової продукції як складова частина інформаційного забезпечення маркетингової діяльності підприємств овочепродуктового підкомплексу," Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, vol. 2(1), March.
    4. Felix J. Bierbrauer & Pierre C. Boyer & Andreas Peichl, 2021. "Politically Feasible Reforms of Nonlinear Tax Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 153-191, January.
    5. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Understanding Tax Policy: How do People Reason?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2309-2369.
    6. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    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. Thomas Blanchet & Juliette Fournier & Thomas Piketty, 2022. "Generalized Pareto Curves: Theory and Applications," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 263-288, March.

    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. Alpino, Matteo & Asatryan, Zareh & Blesse, Sebastian & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2022. "Austerity and distributional policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 112-127.
    2. Asen Ivanov, 2023. "Borda-optimal taxation of labour income," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(3), pages 331-364, April.
    3. Felix Bierbrauer & Pierre C. Boyer & Andreas Peichl, 2020. "Towards politically feasible and welfare-improving tax reforms," ECONtribute Policy Brief Series 008, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    4. Calabrese, Stephen & Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard, 2023. "Majority choice of taxation and redistribution in a federation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    5. Fehr Ernst & Epper Thomas & Senn Julien, 2020. "Social preferences and redistributive politics," ECON - Working Papers 339, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Aug 2023.
    6. Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M. & Krozer, Alice & Ramírez-Álvarez, Aurora A., 2023. "Preferred tax rates depend on the rates paid by the rich," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    7. Marcus Berliant & Pierre C. Boyer, 2024. "Politics and income taxes: Progress and progressivity," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 26(4), August.
    8. Jeffrey, Karen & Matakos, Konstantinos, 2024. "Automation anxiety, fairness perceptions, and redistribution: Past experiences condition the response to future job loss," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 174-190.
    9. Begoña Cabeza; & Shaun Da Costa;, 2023. "Taxation for development: the impact of the Ebola epidemic on citizen support across Western Africa," Working Papers 2307, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    10. Hope, David & Limberg, Julian & Weber, Nina, 2023. "Why do (some) ordinary Americans support tax cuts for the rich? Evidence from a randomised survey experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Campomanes, Ignacio P., 2024. "The political economy of inequality, mobility and redistribution," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Jiménez-Jiménez, Natalia & Molis, Elena & Solano-García, Ángel, 2023. "Don't shoot yourself in the foot! A (real-effort task) experiment on income redistribution and voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    13. Chirvi, Malte & Schneider, Cornelius, 2019. "Stated preferences for capital taxation - tax design, misinformation and the role of partisanship," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 242, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    14. Bowen, T. Renee & Anesi, Vincent, 2018. "Policy Experimentation, Redistribution and Voting Rules," CEPR Discussion Papers 12797, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Jeffrey, Karen, 2021. "Automation and the future of work: How rhetoric shapes the response in policy preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 417-433.
    16. Harms, Philipp & Landwehr, Claudia, 2020. "Is money where the fun ends? Material interests and individuals’ preference for direct democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    17. Andrea Fazio, 2021. "Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?," Working Papers in Public Economics 194, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    18. Germain, Antoine, 2023. "Basic income versus fairness: redistribution with inactive agents," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2023022, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    19. Reiner Eichenberger & David Stadelmann, 2009. "Consequences of Debt Capitalization: Property Ownership and Debt/Tax Choice," CREMA Working Paper Series 2009-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    20. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    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:hal:ipppap:halshs-03364050. 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.