IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/32596.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Optimal Skill Distribution in a Mirrleesian Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Leung, Tin Cheuk
  • Yazici, Hakki

Abstract

People are heterogenous in the skills by which they turn eort into output. A central question in normative public economics is how to redistribute resources from more- to less-skilled individuals eciently. In addition to income taxation, this paper considers another policy tool of redistribution by allowing planner to choose the dispersion of skill distribution given the average skill level of the economy. We nd that, depending on the parameters of the model, either perfectly unequal skill distribution in which one group has a very high skill level and the rest are completely unskilled, or perfectly equal skill distribution in which all agents have the same skill level, is socially optimal, but an interior level of skill inequality is never optimal. We then provide conditions on the parameters under which perfectly equal and perfectly unequal skill distributions are optimal.

Suggested Citation

  • Leung, Tin Cheuk & Yazici, Hakki, 2011. "On the Optimal Skill Distribution in a Mirrleesian Economy," MPRA Paper 32596, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:32596
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/32596/1/MPRA_paper_32596.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Craig Brett & John A. Weymark, 2008. "Public Good Provision And The Comparative Statics Of Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 255-290, February.
    2. Naito, Hisahiro, 1999. "Re-examination of uniform commodity taxes under a non-linear income tax system and its implication for production efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 165-188, February.
    3. Robin Boadway & Pierre Pestieau, 2006. "Tagging and redistributive taxation," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 83-84, pages 123-147.
    4. Helmuth Cremer & Pierre Pestieau & Maria Racionero, 2011. "Unequal wages for equal utilities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 383-398, August.
    5. Jonathan Hamilton & Pierre Pestieau, 2005. "Optimal Income Taxation and the Ability Distribution: Implications for Migration Equilibria," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(1), pages 29-45, January.
    6. Laurent Simula, 2007. "Optimality conditions and comparative static properties of non-linear income taxes revisited," PSE Working Papers halshs-00588074, HAL.
    7. repec:adr:anecst:y:2006:i:83-84:p:05 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Hare, P G & Ulph, D T, 1979. "On Education and Distribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 193-212, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Hakki Yazici & Tin Cheuk Leung, 2017. "On Optimal Skill Distribution in a Mirrleesian Economy," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 73-82.
    2. Craig Brett, 2012. "The effects of population aging on optimal redistributive taxes in an overlapping generations model," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(6), pages 777-799, December.
    3. Craig Brett & John A. Weymark, 2019. "Optimal nonlinear taxation of income and savings without commitment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(1), pages 5-43, February.
    4. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2008. "The impact of changing skill levels on optimal nonlinear income taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1765-1771, July.
    5. Craig Brett & John A. Weymark, 2005. "Optimal Nonlinear Taxation of Income and Savings in a Two Class Economy," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0525, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    6. Craig Brett & John A. Weymark, 2009. "Comparative Statics of Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxation in the Presence of a Publicly Provided Input," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0910, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    7. Helmuth Cremer & Philippe Donder & Pierre Pestieau, 2010. "Education and social mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(4), pages 357-377, August.
    8. Renato Gomes & Jean-Marie Lozachmeur & Alessandro Pavan, 2018. "Differential Taxation and Occupational Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 511-557.
    9. Eric Stephens, 2012. "Teach a man to fish? Education vs. optimal taxation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1700-1727, November.
    10. Kanbur, Ravi & Tuomala, Matti, 2016. "Groupings and the gains from tagging," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 53-63.
    11. Alan Krause, 2008. "Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxation with Learning-by-Doing," Discussion Papers 08/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Robin Boadway & Pierre Pestieau, 2006. "Tagging and redistributive taxation," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 83-84, pages 123-147.
    13. 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.
    14. Laurent Simula, 2007. "Optimality conditions and comparative static properties of non-linear income taxes revisited," Working Papers halshs-00588074, HAL.
    15. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2011. "How optimal nonlinear income taxes change when the distribution of the population changes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1239-1247.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Efthymios Athanasiou, 2012. "Endogenous productivity and equality of opportunity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(1), pages 59-89, June.
    19. Eric Stephens, 2012. "Teach a man to fish? Education vs. optimal taxation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(4), pages 1700-1727, November.
    20. Krause, Alan, 2009. "Optimal nonlinear income taxation with learning-by-doing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(9-10), pages 1098-1110, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Skill Distribution; Mirrleesian Taxation; Redistribution; Eciency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

    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:pra:mprapa:32596. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.