IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mnh/wpaper/36622.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Education Policies and Taxation without Commitment

Author

Listed:
  • Findeisen, Sebastian
  • Sachs, Dominik

Abstract

We study the implications of limited commitment on education and tax policies chosen by benevolent governments. Individual wages are determined by both innate abilities and education levels. Consistent with real world practices, the government can decide to subsidize different levels of education at different rates. Deviations from full commitment tend to make education policies more progressive, increasing the education subsidy for initially low skilled agents and decreasing it for initially high skilled agents. We provide suggestive cross-country correlations for this mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2014. "Education Policies and Taxation without Commitment," Working Papers 14-16, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mnh:wpaper:36622
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/36622/1/Findeisen_und_Sachs_14-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Panu Poutvaara, 2002. "Investment in Education and Redistributive Taxation without Precommitment," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 59(2), pages 177-188, May.
    2. Emmanuel Farhi & Christopher Sleet & Iván Werning & Sevin Yeltekin, 2012. "Non-linear Capital Taxation Without Commitment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1469-1493.
    3. Anderberg, Dan, 2009. "Optimal policy and the risk properties of human capital reconsidered," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1017-1026, October.
    4. Ran Abramitzky & Victor Lavy, 2014. "How Responsive Is Investment in Schooling to Changes in Redistributive Policies and in Returns?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1241-1272, July.
    5. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    6. Trostel, Philip A, 1993. "The Effect of Taxation on Human Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 327-350, April.
    7. Christopher R. Taber, 2001. "The Rising College Premium in the Eighties: Return to College or Return to Unobserved Ability?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(3), pages 665-691.
    8. Andersson, Fredrik & Konrad, Kai A., 2003. "Human capital investment and globalization in extortionary states," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1539-1555, August.
    9. Thomas Lemieux, 2006. "Increasing Residual Wage Inequality: Composition Effects, Noisy Data, or Rising Demand for Skill?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 461-498, June.
    10. Eytan Sheshinski, 1972. "The Optimal Linear Income-tax," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 39(3), pages 297-302.
    11. Card, David, 1999. "The causal effect of education on earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 30, pages 1801-1863, Elsevier.
    12. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1982. "Self-selection and Pareto efficient taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 213-240, March.
    13. Boadway, Robin & Marceau, Nicolas & Marchand, Maurice, 1996. "Investment in Education and the Time Inconsistency of Redistributive Tax Policy," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(250), pages 171-189, May.
    14. Bas Jacobs & A. Lans Bovenberg, 2011. "Optimal Taxation of Human Capital and the Earnings Function," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(6), pages 957-971, December.
    15. da Costa, Carlos E. & Maestri, Lucas J., 2007. "The risk properties of human capital and the design of government policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 695-713, April.
    16. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    17. Konrad, Kai A., 2001. "Privacy and time-consistent optimal labor income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 503-519, March.
    18. Darío Maldonado, 2008. "Education policies and optimal taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(2), pages 131-143, April.
    19. James J. Heckman & Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582600 edited by Benjamin M. Friedman, December.
    20. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, 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. Koeniger, Winfried & Zanella, Carlo, 2022. "Opportunity and inequality across generations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2016. "Education and optimal dynamic taxation: The role of income-contingent student loans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 1-21.
    3. OBARA, Takuya, 2018. "Optimal human capital policies under the endogenous choice of educational types," CCES Discussion Paper Series 66_v2, Center for Research on Contemporary Economic Systems, Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. Spencer Bastani & Firouz Gahvari & Luca Micheletto, 2022. "Nonlinear Taxation of Income and Education in the Presence of Income-Misreporting," CESifo Working Paper Series 9987, CESifo.

    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. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2016. "Education and optimal dynamic taxation: The role of income-contingent student loans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 1-21.
    2. Chaitali Sinha, 2014. "Human Capital and Public Policy," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 3(1), pages 79-125, June.
    3. Bas Jacobs, 2013. "Optimal redistributive tax and education policies in general equilibrium," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(2), pages 312-337, April.
    4. Richter, Wolfram F., 2009. "Taxing education in Ramsey's tradition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1254-1260, December.
    5. repec:zbw:rwirep:0140 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Wolfram F. Richter, 2009. "Taxing Education in Ramsey's Tradition," Ruhr Economic Papers 0140, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    7. OBARA, Takuya, 2018. "Optimal human capital policies under the endogenous choice of educational types," CCES Discussion Paper Series 66_v2, Center for Research on Contemporary Economic Systems, Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Dirk Schindler & Benjamin Weigert, 2008. "Educational and Wage Risk: Social Insurance vs. Quality of Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 2513, CESifo.
    9. Bas Jacobs & A. Bovenberg, 2010. "Human capital and optimal positive taxation of capital income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(5), pages 451-478, October.
    10. Dirk Schindler & Hongyan Yang, 2015. "Catalysts for social insurance: education subsidies versus physical capital taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(2), pages 274-310, April.
    11. Jean-Marc Robin & Costas Meghir & Christian Dustmann & Jerome Adda, 2013. "Career Progression, Economic Downturns, and Skills," 2013 Meeting Papers 993, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2017. "Optimal Taxation and Human Capital Policies over the Life Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 1931-1990.
    13. Bas Jacobs & Uwe Thuemmel, 2020. "Optimal Linear Income Taxation and Education Subsidies under Skill-Biased Technical Change," CESifo Working Paper Series 8805, CESifo.
    14. Wolfram F. Richter & Kerstin Schneider, 2021. "Education: Optimal choice and efficient policy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 840-863, May.
    15. Lance Lochner & Youngki Shin, 2014. "Understanding Earnings Dynamics: Identifying and Estimating the Changing Roles of Unobserved Ability, Permanent and Transitory Shocks," NBER Working Papers 20068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2011. "Education and Optimal Dynamic Taxation," IZA Discussion Papers 6056, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Anderberg, Dan, 2009. "Optimal policy and the risk properties of human capital reconsidered," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1017-1026, October.
    18. Andersson, Fredrik & Konrad, Kai A., 2003. "Human capital investment and globalization in extortionary states," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1539-1555, August.
    19. Andersson, Fredrik & Konrad, Kai A, 2003. "Globalization and Risky Human-Capital Investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(3), pages 211-228, May.
    20. Konrad, Kai A., 2001. "Privacy and time-consistent optimal labor income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 503-519, March.
    21. Koeniger, Winfried & Zanella, Carlo, 2022. "Opportunity and inequality across generations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education Policies ; Time-Inconsistency ; Taxation ; Inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    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:mnh:wpaper:36622. 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: Katharina Rautenberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fvmande.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.