IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nys/sunysb/18-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare Implications of Switching to Consumption Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Carlos Conesa
  • Bo Li
  • Qian Li

Abstract

We evaluate a reform of the US tax system switching to consumption taxation instead of income taxation. We do so in an environment that allows for progressivity of consumption taxes through differential tax rates between basic and non-basic consumption goods. The optimal tax system involves substantial subsidies to the consumption of basic goods. We find large efficiency gains in the long run, with a very small increase in inequality. However, once we consider the transitional dynamics associated to the reform, only very low productivity households and a handful of high productivity low wealth households experience welfare gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Carlos Conesa & Bo Li & Qian Li, 2018. "Welfare Implications of Switching to Consumption Taxation," Department of Economics Working Papers 18-09, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:nys:sunysb:18-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/economics/research/papers/2018/constax_1809.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Kaldor, 1955. "Alternative Theories of Distribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 23(2), pages 83-100.
    2. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2019. "Wealth distribution with random discount factors," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 101-113.
    3. Krueger, Dirk & Kindermann, Fabian, 2014. "High Marginal Tax Rates on the Top 1%? Lessons from a Life Cycle Model with Idiosyncratic Income Risk," CEPR Discussion Papers 10208, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Shinichi Nishiyama & Kent Smetters, 2007. "Does Social Security Privatization Produce Efficiency Gains?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1677-1719.
    5. Raj Chetty & Adam Guren & Day Manoli & Andrea Weber, 2013. "Does Indivisible Labor Explain the Difference between Micro and Macro Elasticities? A Meta-Analysis of Extensive Margin Elasticities," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 1-56.
    6. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    7. Huggett, Mark, 1996. "Wealth distribution in life-cycle economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 469-494, December.
    8. Isabel Correia, 2010. "Consumption Taxes and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1673-1694, September.
    9. Conesa, Juan Carlos & Costa, Daniela & Kamali, Parisa & Kehoe, Timothy J. & Nygard, Vegard M. & Raveendranathan, Gajendran & Saxena, Akshar, 2018. "Macroeconomic effects of Medicare," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 27-40.
    10. Lopez-Daneri, Martin, 2016. "NIT picking: The macroeconomic effects of a Negative Income Tax," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-16.
    11. Gouveia, Miguel & Strauss, Robert P., 1994. "Effective Federal Individual Tax Functions: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(2), pages 317-339, June.
    12. David Domeij & Jonathan Heathcote, 2004. "On The Distributional Effects Of Reducing Capital Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 523-554, May.
    13. Anagnostopoulos, Alexis & Cárceles-Poveda, Eva & Lin, Danmo, 2012. "Dividend and capital gains taxation under incomplete markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 599-611.
    14. Juan Carlos Conesa & Bo Li & Qian Li, 2020. "Universal Basic Income and Progressive Consumption Taxes," Department of Economics Working Papers 20-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    15. Gouveia, Miguel & Strauss, Robert P., 1994. "Effective Federal Individual Tax Functions: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 47(2), pages 317-39, June.
    16. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2005. "Consumption versus Expenditure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 919-948, October.
    17. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969.
    18. David Altig, 2001. "Simulating Fundamental Tax Reform in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 574-595, June.
    19. Ventura, Gustavo, 1999. "Flat tax reform: A quantitative exploration," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1425-1458, September.
    20. Deaton, Angus, 1979. "Optimally uniform commodity taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-361.
    21. Kindermann, Fabian & Krueger, Dirk, 2014. "High marginal tax rates on the top 1%?," CFS Working Paper Series 473, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    22. Krusell, Per & Quadrini, Vincenzo & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 1996. "Are consumption taxes really better than income taxes?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 475-503, June.
    23. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Welfare Implications of Switching to Consumption Taxation
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2018-10-14 03:03:10

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Spencer Bastani & Sebastian Koehne, 2022. "How Should Consumption Be Taxed?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10038, CESifo.
    2. Nezih Guner & Martin Lopez-Daneri & Gustavo Ventura, 2023. "The Looming Fiscal Reckoning: Tax Distortions, Top Earners, and Revenues," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 50, pages 146-170, October.
    3. Burkhard Heer & Vito Polito & Mike Wickens, 2023. "Pension Systems (Un)sustainability and Fiscal Constraints: A Comparative Analysis," Working Papers 2023014, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    4. Conesa, Juan Carlos & Li, Bo & Li, Qian, 2023. "A quantitative evaluation of universal basic income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    5. Richiardi, Matteo & Bronka, Patryk & van de Ven, Justin, 2022. "Dynamic simulation of taxes and welfare benefits by database imputation," Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis Working Paper Series CEMPA3/22, Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    6. da Costa, Carlos E. & Santos, Marcelo R., 2023. "Progressive consumption taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).

    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. Juan Carlos Conesa & Bo Li & Qian Li, 2020. "Universal Basic Income and Progressive Consumption Taxes," Department of Economics Working Papers 20-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    2. Dirk Krueger, 2006. "Public Insurance against Idiosyncratic and Aggregate Risk: The Case of Social Security and Progressive Income Taxation," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 52(4), pages 587-620, December.
    3. Juan Carlos Conesa & Sagiri Kitao & Dirk Krueger, 2009. "Taxing Capital? Not a Bad Idea after All!," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 25-48, March.
    4. Conesa, Juan Carlos & Krueger, Dirk, 2006. "On the optimal progressivity of the income tax code," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1425-1450, October.
    5. William B. Peterman & Erick Sager, 2022. "Optimal Public Debt with Life Cycle Motives," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 404-437, October.
    6. Javier Díaz-Giménez & Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2006. "Flat Tax Reforms in the U.S.: A Boon for the Income Poor," Working Papers wp2006_0611, CEMFI.
    7. Ruediger Bachmann & Jinhui Bai & Minjoon Lee & Fudong Zhang, 2020. "The Welfare and Distributional Effects of Fiscal Volatility: a Quantitative Evaluation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 127-153, October.
    8. Javier Díaz-Giménez & Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2011. "Flat Tax Reforms: Investment Expensing and Progressivity," Working Papers wp2011_1101, CEMFI.
    9. Ruediger Bachmann & Jinhui Bai & Minjoon Lee & Fudong Zhang, 2020. "The Welfare and Distributional Effects of Fiscal Volatility: a Quantitative Evaluation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 127-153, October.
    10. Minchul Yum, 2018. "On the distribution of wealth and employment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 86-105, October.
    11. Audrey Desbonnet & Jean-Olivier Hairault, 2010. "Inégalité de patrimoine et progressivité de l'impôt," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(2), pages 21-41.
    12. Lopez-Daneri, Martin, 2016. "NIT picking: The macroeconomic effects of a Negative Income Tax," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-16.
    13. Marco Cozzi, 2018. "Optimal Capital Taxation with Incomplete Markets and Schumpeterian Growth," Department Discussion Papers 1803, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    14. José Victor Rios-Rull, 2002. "Desigualdad, ¿qué sabemos?," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 26(2), pages 221-254, May.
    15. Kaymak, Barıș & Leung, David & Poschke, Markus, 2020. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 13082, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Ana Castañeda & Javier Díaz-Giménez & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, "undated". ""Earnings and Wealth Inequality and Income Taxation: Quantifying the Trade-Offs of Switching to a Proportional Income Tax in the U.S.''," CARESS Working Papres 98-14, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    17. Li Qian, 2020. "Dynamic effects of consumption tax reforms with durable consumption," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-33, June.
    18. Césaire Meh, 2002. "Entrepreneurship, Inequality, and Taxation," Staff Working Papers 02-14, Bank of Canada.
    19. Aditya Aladangady & Etienne Gagnon & Benjamin K. Johannsen & William B. Peterman, 2021. "Macroeconomic Implications of Inequality and Income Risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Gianluca Violante & Greg Kaplan, 2008. "How Much Insurance in Bewley Models?," 2008 Meeting Papers 522, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

    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:nys:sunysb:18-09. 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/edstous.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.