IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc14/100435.html

On The Ambiguous Sign of the Optimal Utilitarian Marginal Income Tax

Author

Listed:
  • Hansen, Emanuel

Abstract

The paper studies optimal income taxation in a model with labor supply responses at the intensive and the extensive margin. It is shown that a utilitarian desire for redistribution does not pin down the sign of the optimal marginal tax rate: labor supply may be downward distorted, undistorted, or even upward distorted at both margins. The paper provides suffi cient conditions for the optimality of an EITC-style tax/transfer scheme under which labor supply is upward distorted at both margins for some skill groups. Furthermore, the paper shows optimal upward distortions at the intensive margin are driven by a non-standard tradeoff between effi ciency at the intensive margin and effi ciency at the extensive margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Hansen, Emanuel, 2014. "On The Ambiguous Sign of the Optimal Utilitarian Marginal Income Tax," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100435, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc14:100435
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/100435/1/VfS_2014_pid_959.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Beaudry & Charles Blackorby & Dezsö Szalay, 2009. "Taxes and Employment Subsidies in Optimal Redistribution Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 216-242, March.
    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. Jean-Baptiste Michau, 2011. "Optimal Redistribution with Intensive and Extensive Labor Supply Margins: A Life-Cycle Perspective," Working Papers hal-00639121, HAL.
    2. Carlier, Guillaume & Dupuis, Xavier & Rochet, Jean-Charles & Thanassoulis, John, 2024. "A general solution to the quasi linear screening problem," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    3. Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund, 2006. "Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 357-386, July.
    4. Murty, Sushama, 2010. "Externalities and fundamental nonconvexities: A reconciliation of approaches to general equilibrium externality modeling and implications for decentralization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 331-353, January.
    5. Robin Boadway & Zhen Song & Jean‐François Tremblay, 2017. "Optimal Income Taxation and Job Choice," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(4), pages 910-938, October.
    6. Peter Funk, 2009. "History-Dependent Individual Behavior, Polarization, and Pareto-Improving Activating Welfare," Working Paper Series in Economics 43, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    7. Philippe Chone & Guy Laroque, 2010. "Negative Marginal Tax Rates and Heterogeneity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2532-2547, December.
    8. Timothy F. Harris, 2018. "Do SNAP Work Requirements Work?," Upjohn Working Papers 19-297, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    9. Christine Ho & Nicola Pavoni, 2020. "Efficient Child Care Subsidies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(1), pages 162-199, January.
    10. Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund, 2006. "Optimal unemployment insurance design: Time limits, monitoring, or workfare?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(5), pages 565-585, September.
    11. Emanuel Hansen, 2017. "Optimal income taxation with labor supply responses at two margins: When is an Earned Income Tax Credit optimal?," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2017_10, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics.
    12. Casey Rothschild & Florian Scheuer, 2016. "Optimal Taxation with Rent-Seeking," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1225-1262.
    13. Pierre Cahuc & Guy Laroque, 2014. "Optimal Taxation and Monopsonistic Labor Market: Does Monopsony Justify the Minimum Wage?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(2), pages 259-273, April.
    14. Lee, Kyung-woo, 2015. "Optimal disability insurance with unobservable skill heterogeneity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 94-109.
    15. Robert A. Moffitt, 2003. "The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 291-364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Choné, Philippe & Laroque, Guy, 2011. "Optimal taxation in the extensive model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 425-453, March.
    17. Ruggero Paladini, 2014. "Da Bentham alla tassazione ottimale," Public Finance Research Papers 2, Istituto di Economia e Finanza, DSGE, Sapienza University of Rome.
    18. Krähmer, Daniel & Strausz, Roland, 2025. "Unidirectional incentive compatibility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    19. Lohse Tim, 2014. "The Objections against Workfare Revised," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 95-118, April.
    20. Paul Beaudry & Charles Blackorby & Dezsö Szalay, 2009. "Taxes and Employment Subsidies in Optimal Redistribution Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 216-242, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:zbw:vfsc14:100435. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.