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How to Protect Future Generations Using Tax Base Restrictions

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  • Antonio Rangel

Abstract

This paper studies constitutional restrictions on the tax base that protect future generations from expropriation and improve the optimality of investment in Intergenerational Public Goods (IPGs). The choice of the tax base matters because it affects how intergenerational (IG) spillovers are capitalized into assets that are owned by current generations, and thus the IG politics. We show that with an income tax base, present generations expropriate future generations and produce inefficiently low levels of IPGs. By contrast, with a land tax base, IG expropriation using debt is impossible, the level of investment in IPGs is higher and, for some types of IPGs, Pareto optimal.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9179.

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Date of creation: Sep 2002
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Publication status: published as Rangel, Antonio. "How To Protect Future Generations Using Tax-Base Restrictions," American Economic Review, 2005, v95(1,Mar), 314-346.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9179
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  • H0 - Public Economics - - General
  • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

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  1. Joseph G. Altonji & Fumio Hayashi & Laurence Kotlikoff, 1995. "Parental Altruism and Inter Vivos Transfers: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 5378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Skinner, Jonathan, 1991. "Prospects for Agricultural Land Taxation in Developing Countries," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 5(3), pages 493-511, September.
  3. James M. Poterba, 1993. "State Responses to Fiscal Crisis: The Effects of Budgetary Institutionsand Politics," NBER Working Papers 4375, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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  5. Feldstein, Martin S, 1977. "The Surprising Incidence of a Tax on Pure Rent: A New Answer to an Old Question," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(2), pages 349-60, April.
  6. James Poterba, 1992. "Capital Budgets, Borrowing Rules, and State Capital Spending," NBER Working Papers 4235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Alan J. Auerbach & James R. Hines Jr., 2001. "Taxation and Economic Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 8181, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Altonji, Joseph G & Hayashi, Fumio & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1992. "Is the Extended Family Altruistically Linked? Direct Tests Using Micro Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1177-98, December.
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Cited by:

  1. Marko Koethenbuerger & Panu Poutvaara, 2009. "Rent taxation and its intertemporal welfare effects in a small open economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 16(5), pages 697-709, October.
  2. Parry, Ian W.H., 2007. "Are the costs of reducing greenhouse gases from passenger vehicles negative?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 273-293, September.
  3. Christian A. L. Hilber, 2007. "New housing supply and the dilution of social capital," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3573, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  4. Gersbach, Hans, 2009. "Minority voting and public project provision," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 3, pages 1-40.
  5. Marco Bassetto & Thomas J Sargent, 2006. "Politics and Efficiency of Separating Capital and Ordinary Government Budgets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 121(4), pages 1167-1210, November.
  6. Robert P. Inman, 2010. "States in fiscal distress," Regional Economic Development, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Oct, pages 65-80.
  7. Springer, Job D. & Lusby, Aaron K. & Leatherman, John C. & Featherstone, Allen M., 2007. "Property Tax Lids and the Effect on Kansas," 2007 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2007, Mobile, Alabama 34887, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
  8. Robert P. Inman, 2010. "States in Fiscal Distress," NBER Working Papers 16086, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Marco Bassetto, 2009. "The Research Agenda: Marco Bassetto on the Quantitative Evaluation of Fiscal Policy Rules," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(2), April.
  10. Gersbach, Hans & Kleinschmidt, Tobias, 2009. "Power to youth: Designing democracy for long-term well-being," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 158-172, September.

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