IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jku/econwp/2013_15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxing bequests and consumption in the steady state

Author

Listed:
  • Johann Brunner
  • Susanne Pech

Abstract

We study the optimal tax system in a dynamic model where differences in wages induce differences in inheritances, and the transition from parent ability to child ability is described by a Markov chain. We characterize expected inheritances in the steady state and show that the Atkinson-Stiglitz result on the redundancy of indirect taxes does not hold in this framework. In particular, given an optimal income tax, a bequest tax as well as a consumption tax are potential instruments for additional redistribution. For the bequest tax the sign of the overall welfare e¤ect depends on the reaction of bequests and on inequality aversion, while for the consumption tax the sign is always positive because the distorting e¤ect is outweighed by the induced increase in wealth accumulation. A necessary condition for a positive welfare effect is the empirically validated relation that more able individuals on average have more able parents than less able individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Johann Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2013. "Taxing bequests and consumption in the steady state," Economics working papers 2013-15, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    • Handle: RePEc:jku:econwp:2013_15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2013/wp1315.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2010. "Progressive Estate Taxation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 635-673.
    2. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2003. "Capital income taxation when inherited wealth is not observable," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2475-2490, October.
    3. Jantti, Markus & Bratsberg, Bernt & Roed, Knut & Raaum, Oddbjorn & Naylor, Robin & Osterbacka, Eva & Bjorklund, Anders & Eriksson, Tor, 2005. "American exceptionalism in a new light: a comparison of intergenerational earnings mobility in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the United States," Economic Research Papers 269752, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    4. Thomas Piketty, 2011. "On the Long-Run Evolution of Inheritance: France 1820--2050," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1071-1131.
    5. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2013. "Incentive Effects of Inheritances and Optimal Estate Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 472-477, May.
    6. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2012. "Taxation of Intergenerational Transfers and Wealth," NBER Working Papers 18584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Brunner Johann K. & Pech Susanne, 2012. "Optimal Taxation of Wealth Transfers When Bequests are Motivated by Joy of Giving," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, March.
    8. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    9. Leigh Andrew, 2007. "Intergenerational Mobility in Australia," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-28, December.
    10. Robin Boadway & Maurice Marchand & Pierre Pestieau, 2000. "Redistribution with Unobservable Bequests: A Case for Taxing Capital Income," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(2), pages 253-267, June.
    11. repec:bla:scandj:v:102:y:2000:i:2:p:253-67 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Gary Solon, 2018. "What Do We Know So Far about Multigenerational Mobility?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 340-352, July.
    13. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    14. Hellwig, Martin F., 1986. "The optimal linear income tax revisited," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 163-179, November.
    15. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2001. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: The Design of the Tax Structure Revisted," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(3), pages 781-799, August.
    16. Johann K. Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2012. "Optimal Taxation of Bequests in a Model with Initial Wealth," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1368-1392, December.
    17. Deaton, Angus, 1979. "Optimally uniform commodity taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-361.
    18. Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The desirability of commodity taxation under non-linear income taxation and heterogeneous tastes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 217-230, February.
    19. Andrew Christie & Sarah Moritz, 2007. "Australia," Chapters, in: Uma Suthersanen & Graham Dutfield & Kit Boey Chow (ed.), Innovation Without Patents, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Zimmerman, David J, 1992. "Regression toward Mediocrity in Economic Stature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 409-429, June.
    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. Brunner Johann K., 2014. "Die Erbschaftsteuer – Bestandteil eines optimalen Steuersystems?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 199-218, October.

    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. Brunner Johann K., 2014. "Die Erbschaftsteuer – Bestandteil eines optimalen Steuersystems?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 199-218, October.
    2. Johann K. Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2012. "Optimal Taxation of Bequests in a Model with Initial Wealth," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1368-1392, December.
    3. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "How Should Capital Be Taxed?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 812-846, September.
    4. Johann K. Brunner, 2012. "The Bequest Tax as Long-Term Care Insurance," CESifo Working Paper Series 3901, CESifo.
    5. Johann Brunner & Paul Eckerstorfer & Susanne Pech, 2013. "Optimal taxes on wealth and consumption in the presence of tax evasion," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 107-124, October.
    6. Johann K. Brunner, 2010. "Die Erbschaftssteuer im Modell der optimalen Besteuerung," Economics working papers 2010-14, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Brunner Johann K. & Pech Susanne, 2012. "Optimal Taxation of Wealth Transfers When Bequests are Motivated by Joy of Giving," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, March.
    8. Spencer Bastani & Sebastian Koehne, 2022. "How Should Consumption Be Taxed?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10038, CESifo.
    9. Decerf,Benoit Marie A & Maniquet,François, 2021. "Fair Inheritance Taxation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9804, The World Bank.
    10. Sajid Amin Javed & Mohammad Irfan, 2014. "Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from Pakistan Panel Household Survey," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 53(2), pages 175-203.
    11. Marie‐Louise Leroux & Pierre Pestieau, 2023. "Age‐ and health‐related non‐linear inheritance taxation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 897-912, August.
    12. Carlos E. da Costa, 2009. "Yet Another Reason to Tax Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(2), pages 363-376, April.
    13. Waldenstrom, Daniel & Bastani, Spencer, 2018. "How Should Capital Be Taxed? Theory and Evidence from Sweden," CEPR Discussion Papers 12880, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff, 2015. "Tax treatment of bequests when donor benefits are discounted," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(4), pages 604-634, August.
    15. García-Miralles Esteban, 2020. "The Crucial Role of Social Welfare Criteria and Individual Heterogeneity for Optimal Inheritance Taxation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-16, April.
    16. Corak, Miles & Curtis, Lori & Phipps, Shelley, 2010. "Economic Mobility, Family Background, and the Well-Being of Children in the United States and Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 4814, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2018. "Pareto efficient taxation and expenditures: Pre- and re-distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 101-119.
    18. Johann K. Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2008. "Optimum taxation of inheritances," Economics working papers 2008-06, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    19. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    20. Julien Daubanes & Pierre Lasserre, 2011. "Optimum Commodity Taxation with a Non-Renewable Resource," CIRANO Working Papers 2011s-05, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    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:jku:econwp:2013_15. 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: René Böheim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vlinzat.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.