Long-run growth effects of taxation in a non-scale growth model with innovation

In previous studies, taxing income or consumption hinders long-run growth. Incorporating saving and leisure into the non-scale Schumpeterian model of Howitt (1999), we show that the usual growth effects of taxing consumption and labor income do not exist.Scale effects; Taxation; Long-run growth

Subsidies in an R&D growth model with elastic labor

This paper compares different subsidies in an R&D growth model with competitive suppliers of a final good and monopolistic suppliers of intermediate goods. Unlike existing studies with lump-sum taxes and fixed labor, we assume distortionary taxes and elastic labor, finding some new insights. First, subsidizing R&D investment is more effective than subsidizing final output or subsidizing the purchase of intermediate goods in terms of promoting growth. Second, in terms of raising welfare, the R&D subsidy may also be more effective than the other subsidies and all of them are dominated by their mix, but none can achieve the social optimum.

Optimal tax mix in a two-sector growth model with transitional dynamics

This paper examines the problem of optimal tax mix analytically in a two-sector growth model with transitional dynamics. Tax revenue is required to provide a pure public good. The key problems are: over-consumption of leisure under labor income or consumption taxes; and under-investments in human and physical capital under income taxes. Without investment subsidies, consumption taxes do better than uniform income taxes, but can be improved on locally via positive taxation of physical capital income and a negative tax on labor income. With subsidies the first best can be achieved in a system where: (i) if consumption and labor income taxes are non-zero they are of the same rate but opposite signs, (ii) the tax rate on physical capital income exceeds that on labor income, (iii) subsidy rates on investments equal income tax rates, for both forms of capital. In any given circumstances, a range of alternative tax mixes may provide equivalent results. This result, combined with practical constraints, may help to explain the variety of tax mixes observed across countries.Growth; Transitional dynamics; Optimal taxation; Subsidies