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Measuring the Efficiency Cost of Taxing Risky Capital Income

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  • Roger H. Gordon
  • John D. Wilson

Abstract

In this paper, we derive a measure of the efficiency cost of taxing risky capital income in an infinite horizon stochastic model. The resulting measure differs from all those that have been proposed in the existing literature. It can be represented by the expression -sigma(s) T(s)c(deltaX(s)), where T(s) measures the present value of the taxes that would be paid on a unit of investment in a riskless project with the same expected depreciation rate and tax treatment as capital invested in period s, X(s), while c(X(s)) represents the certainty equivalent to the representative individual of the lottery where measures the ex post change in investment in period s due to the tax change. The paper then compares this measure with others that have appeared in the literature. We were unable to find support for the argument in Bulow-Suinmers(1984) that the efficiency cost of taxing risky capital income is much larger than that implied by the measure -sigma(s)T(s)E(deltaX(s)). In fact, we show in special cases that our measure implies a smaller efficiency cost than does the measure -sigma(s)T(s)E(deltaX(s)).

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  • Roger H. Gordon & John D. Wilson, 1986. "Measuring the Efficiency Cost of Taxing Risky Capital Income," NBER Working Papers 1992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1992
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    1. Charles L. Ballard & Don Fullerton & John B. Shoven & John Whalley, 1985. "General Equilibrium Analysis of Tax Policies," NBER Chapters, in: A General Equilibrium Model for Tax Policy Evaluation, pages 6-24, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kwang Soo Cheong, 1998. "Corporate Income Taxation and Signaling," Public Finance Review, , vol. 26(5), pages 480-502, September.
    2. Duanjie Chen & Guillermo Perry, 2010. "Mining Taxation in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 012562, Universidad de los Andes - CEDE.
    3. Randall Morck & Masao Nakamura, 2000. "Japanese Corporate Governance and Macroeconomic Problems," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1893, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    4. Hlouskova, Jaroslava & Tsigaris, Panagiotis, 2020. "Capital income taxation under full loss offset provisions of a prospect theory investor," IHS Working Paper Series 11, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    5. Lans Bovenberg & Krister Anderson & Kenji Aramaki & Sheetal K. Chand, 1990. "Tax Incentives and International Capital Flows: The Case of the United States and Japan," NBER Chapters, in: Taxation in the Global Economy, pages 283-328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bob Hamilton & Jack Mintz & John Whalley, 1991. "Decomposing the Welfare Costs of Capital Tax Distortions: The Importance of Risk Assumptions," NBER Working Papers 3628, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Devereux, Michael P., 2003. "Taxing Risky Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 4053, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Syed M. Ahsan & Panagiotis Tsigaris, 2009. "The Efficiency Loss of Capital Income Taxation under Imperfect Loss Offset Provisions," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(6), pages 710-731, November.
    9. Marika Santoro & Chao Wei, 2011. "Taxation, Investment and Asset Pricing," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(3), pages 443-454, July.
    10. Patric H. Hendershott, 1987. "Tax Reform and the Slope of the Playing Field," NBER Chapters, in: Taxes and Capital Formation, pages 51-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "Seeking for an optimal tax administration: the efficiency costs’ approach [A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience]," Post-Print halshs-00195354, HAL.
    12. Lund, Diderik, 2006. "Taxation and systematic risk under decreasing returns to scale," Working Papers 02-2003, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    13. Roger Gordon & Laura Kalambokidis & Joel Slemrod, 2003. "A New Summary Measure of the Effective Tax Rate on Investment," NBER Working Papers 9535, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kenneth McKenzie & Jack Mintz, 1992. "Tax Effects on the Cost of Capital," NBER Chapters, in: Canada-U.S. Tax Comparisons, pages 189-216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Katharina Finke & Jost H. Heckemeyer & Timo Reister & Christoph Spengel, 2013. "Impact of Tax-Rate Cut cum Base-Broadening Reforms on Heterogeneous Firms: Learning from the German Tax Reform of 2008," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 69(1), pages 72-114, March.
    16. Lund, Diderik, 2009. "Marginal versus Average Beta of Equity under Corporate Taxation," Memorandum 12/2009, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    17. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05050, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    18. Louis Kaplow, 1991. "Taxation and Risk Taking: A General Equilibrium Perspective," NBER Working Papers 3709, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Santoro, Marika & Wei, Chao, 2013. "The marginal welfare cost of capital taxation: Discounting matters," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 897-909.
    20. Sara L. McGaughey & Pascalis Raimondos, 2019. "Shifting MNE taxation from national to global profits: A radical reform long overdue," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(9), pages 1668-1683, December.

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