IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0388.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Notes on Optimal Wage Taxation and Uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Eaton
  • Harvey S. Rosen

Abstract

Most contributions to optimal tax theory have assumed that all prices, including that of leisure, are known with certainty. The purpose of this paper is to analyze optimal taxation when workers have imperfect information about their wages at the time they choose their labor supplies. Both efficiency and redistributive aspects of the problem are considered. The paper begins with a discussion of the positive theory of wage taxation and labor supply under uncertainty. This is followed by a discussion of optimal taxation when individuals are identical, but their wages are stochastic. Finally, the case of simultaneous uncertainty and inequality is discussed. In this part of the paper it is assumed that the government's objective is to maximize a utilitarian social welfare function.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Eaton & Harvey S. Rosen, 1979. "Notes on Optimal Wage Taxation and Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 0388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0388
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0388.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Block, M K & Heineke, J M, 1973. "The Allocation of Effort under Uncertainty: The Case of Risk-averse Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(2), pages 376-385, Part I, M.
    2. Levhari, David & Weiss, Yoram, 1974. "The Effect of Risk on the Investment in Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 950-963, December.
    3. Feldstein, Martin, 1973. "On the optimal progressivity of the income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-376.
    4. Bradford, David F & Rosen, Harvey S, 1976. "The Optimal Taxation of Commodities and Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 94-101, May.
    5. Jonathan Eaton, 1981. "Fiscal Policy, Inflation and the Accumulation of Risky Capital," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(3), pages 435-445.
    6. Sandmo, Agnar, 1976. "Optimal taxation : An introduction to the literature," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 37-54.
    7. Mayshar, Joram, 1977. "Should Government Subsidize Risky Private Projects?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 20-28, March.
    8. Diamond, P. A. & Helms, L. J. & Mirrlees, J. A., 1980. "Optimal taxation in a stochastic economy : A Cobb-Douglas example," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-29, August.
    9. Stern, N. H., 1976. "On the specification of models of optimum income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 123-162.
    10. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    11. Friend, Irwin & Blume, Marshall E, 1975. "The Demand for Risky Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 900-922, December.
    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. Yen-Ling Lin & Cheng-Yi Kang, 2023. "The Impact of Labor Market Risk on Youth Career Preparation for Sustainable Development: Evidence from Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Netzer, Nick & Scheuer, Florian, 2007. "Taxation, insurance, and precautionary labor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1519-1531, August.

    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. Auerbach, Alan J. & Hines, James Jr., 2002. "Taxation and economic efficiency," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 21, pages 1347-1421, Elsevier.
    2. Brent Kreider, 2003. "Income Uncertainty and Optimal Redistribution," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(3), pages 718-725, January.
    3. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Pareto efficient and optimal taxation and the new new welfare economics," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 991-1042, Elsevier.
    4. Amedeo Spadaro, 2002. "Redistribución e incentivos a la oferta de trabajo: Desarrollos recientes de la teoría de la imposición óptima sobre la renta," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 160(1), pages 147-173, march.
    5. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner & Youngmin Park, 2017. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why Do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 102-147, January.
    6. William P. Osterberg, 1992. "Intervention and the bid-ask spread in G-3 foreign exchange rates," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 28(Q II), pages 2-13.
    7. Saïd Hanchane & Abraham Lioui & David Touahri, 2006. "Human capital as a risky asset and the effect of uncertainty on the decision to invest," Working Papers halshs-00010139, HAL.
    8. Anderberg, Dan & Andersson, Fredrik, 2003. "Investments in human capital, wage uncertainty, and public policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1521-1537, August.
    9. Maier, Johannes & Rüger, Maximilian, 2010. "Measuring Risk Aversion Model-Independently," Discussion Papers in Economics 11873, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Schokkaert, Erik & Van de gaer, Dirk & Vandenbroucke, Frank & Luttens, Roland Iwan, 2004. "Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism and optimal linear income taxation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 151-182, September.
    11. Gunther Rehme, 2002. "Distributive Policies and Economic Growth: An Optimal Taxation Approach," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 315-338, August.
    12. W. Chiu & Louis Eeckhoudt, 2010. "The effects of stochastic wages and non-labor income on labor supply: update and extensions," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 100(1), pages 69-83, May.
    13. Ott, Ingrid & Soretz, Susanne, 2002. "Optimal Taxation in a Stochastic Endogenous Growth Model with Congestion," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-253, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    14. Antràs, Pol & de Gortari, Alonso & Itskhoki, Oleg, 2017. "Globalization, inequality and welfare," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 387-412.
    15. Trabelsi, Mohamed Ali, 2006. "Les nouveaux modèles de décision dans le risque et l’incertain : quel apport ? [The new models of decision under risk or uncertainty : What approach?]," MPRA Paper 25442, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Calvet, Laurent-Emmanuel & Grandmont, Jean-Michel & Lemaire, Isabelle, 2018. "Aggregation of heterogenous beliefs, asset pricing, and risk sharing in complete financial markets," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 117-146.
    17. Levy, Moshe, 2015. "An evolutionary explanation for risk aversion," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 51-61.
    18. Jacques H. Dreze, 2000. "Economic and Social Security in the Twenty‐first Century, with Attention to Europe," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 327-348, September.
    19. Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp & Diego Nocetti, 2013. "Economic consequences of Nth-degree risk increases and Nth-degree risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 199-224, October.
    20. Parker, Simon C., 1999. "The optimal linear taxation of employment and self-employment incomes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 107-123, July.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0388. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.