IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/47612.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal labor-income tax volatility with credit frictions

Author

Listed:
  • Abo-Zaid, Salem

Abstract

This paper studies the optimal behavior of labor-income taxation in a simple model with credit frictions. Firms’ borrowing to pay their wage payments in advance is constrained by the value of their collateral at the beginning of the period. The labor-income tax rate and the shadow value on the credit constraint lead to a wedge between the marginal product of labor and the marginal rate of substitution between labor and consumption. This paper suggests that while the notion of “static wedge smoothing” is carried over to this environment, it is achieved only through a volatile labor-income tax rate. As the shadow value on the financing constraint varies over the business cycle, tax volatility is needed in order to counter this variation and, thus, allow for “wedge smoothing”. In particular, the optimal labor-income tax rate is lower when the credit market is more tightened and higher when it is less tightened. Therefore, when firms are more credit-constrained and the demand for labor is reduced, optimal fiscal policy calls for boosting labor supply by lowering the labor-income tax rate. It is also shown that the optimal behavior of the labor-income tax rate that is discovered in this study is consistent with its historical behavior in the U.S.

Suggested Citation

  • Abo-Zaid, Salem, 2012. "Optimal labor-income tax volatility with credit frictions," MPRA Paper 47612, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Jun 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:47612
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/47612/8/MPRA_paper_47611.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Chaney & David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2012. "The Collateral Channel: How Real Estate Shocks Affect Corporate Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2381-2409, October.
    2. Chari, V.V. & Kehoe, Patrick J., 1999. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1671-1745, Elsevier.
    3. Carlstrom, Charles T & Fuerst, Timothy S, 1997. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 893-910, December.
    4. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1991. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Some Recent Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 519-539, August.
    5. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    6. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Solving dynamic general equilibrium models using a second-order approximation to the policy function," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 755-775, January.
    7. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    8. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1994. "Optimal Fiscal Policy in a Business Cycle Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 617-652, August.
    9. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    10. David M. Arseneau & Sanjay K. Chugh, 2012. "Tax Smoothing in Frictional Labor Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(5), pages 926-985.
    11. Charles T. Carlstrom & Timothy S. Fuerst & Matthias Paustian, 2010. "Optimal Monetary Policy in a Model with Agency Costs," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 37-70, September.
    12. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    13. Abo-Zaid, Salem, 2013. "On credit frictions as labor–income taxation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 287-292.
    14. S. Rao Aiyagari & Albert Marcet & Thomas J. Sargent & Juha Seppala, 2002. "Optimal Taxation without State-Contingent Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1220-1254, December.
    15. Torben M. Andersen & Robert R. Dogonowski, 2004. "What Should Optimal Income Taxes Smooth?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(3), pages 491-507, August.
    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. Abo-Zaid Salem, 2014. "Optimal capital-income taxation in a model with credit frictions," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-26, January.

    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. Chugh, Sanjay K. & Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Merkl, Christian, 2018. "Optimal fiscal policy with labor selection," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 142-189.
    2. Fabio Ghironi & Sanjay K. Chugh, 2010. "Optimal Fiscal Policy with Endogenous Product Variety," 2010 Meeting Papers 812, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Marcet, Albert & Scott, Andrew, 2009. "Debt and deficit fluctuations and the structure of bond markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 473-501, March.
    4. repec:zbw:bofism:2006_033 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Pierpaolo Benigno & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy: A Linear-Quadratic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 271-364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Railavo, Jukka, 2006. "Essays on macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy rules," Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, number 2006_033.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    8. Ester Faia & Tommaso Monacelli, 2003. "Ramsey monetary policy and international relative prices," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy under sticky prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 198-230, February.
    10. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2006. "Modern Macroeconomics in Practice: How Theory Is Shaping Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 3-28, Fall.
    11. David M. Arseneau & Ryan Chahrour & Sanjay K. Chugh & Alan Finkelstein Shapiro, 2015. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Customer Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 617-672, June.
    12. Angyridis, Constantine, 2009. "Balanced budget vs. Tax smoothing in a small open economy: A welfare comparison," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 438-463, September.
    13. Sanjay K. Chugh, 2006. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy with Sticky Wages and Sticky Prices," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 683-714, October.
    14. Gorostiaga, Arantza, 2003. "Should fiscal policy be different in a non-competitive framework?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1311-1331, September.
    15. Michael Kumhof & Irina Yakadina, 2017. "Government Debt Bias," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 65(4), pages 675-703, November.
    16. Carlos Gustavo Machicado, 2006. "Welfare Gains from Optimal Policy in a Partially Dollarized Economy," Development Research Working Paper Series 10/2006, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    17. Chugh, Sanjay K., 2007. "Optimal inflation persistence: Ramsey taxation with capital and habits," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1809-1836, September.
    18. Caprioli, Francesco, 2015. "Optimal fiscal policy under learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 101-124.
    19. Siu, Henry E., 2004. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy with sticky prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 575-607, April.
    20. Railavo, Jukka, 2006. "Essays on macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy rules," Bank of Finland Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, volume 0, number sm2006_033.
    21. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2004_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Jukka Railavo, 2005. "Monetary Concequences of Alternative Fiscal Policy Rules," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 145, Society for Computational Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor tax smoothing; Credit frictions; Borrowing constraints;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

    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:47612. 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.