Essays on public finance and publicly provided public good

Le résumé en français n'a pas été communiqué par l'auteur.This thesis deals with several theoretical subjects about optimal fiscal and government policy. It contains my four works about tax and other redistributive policy, starting with the general introductory survey as the first chapter. Chapter 2 compares ad-valorem and specific taxation in models where a representative consumer with an exogenous income has both a quality and a quantity choice under perfect competition. In the setting, while ad-valorem tax causes income effect only, specific tax causes both income effect and substitution effect. Therefore, advalorem tax decreases consumer demand for both quality and quantity; on the other hand, specific tax decreases consumer demand for quantity. However, the sign of consumer demand for quality is ambiguous and is determined by the curvature of marginal utility on quantity. Additionally, using a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function and a linear price function, we show that ad-valorem tax is superior to specific tax except for the Leontief preference under which the two forms of commodity taxes generate the same tax revenue. The substitution effect caused by specific tax disappears if the elasticity of substitution converges to zero. In Chapter 3, We examine optimal taxation and public good provision by a government which takes reduction of envy into consideration as one of the constraints. We adopt the notion of extended envy-freeness proposed by Diamantaras and Thomson(1990), called λ-equitability. We derive the modified Samuelson rule at an optimum income tax, and show that, using a constant elasticity of substitution utility function, the direction of distorting the original Samuelson rule to relax λ envy free constraints is crucially determined by the elasticity of substitution. Furthermore, we numerically show that the level of public good increases (or decreases) in the degree of envy-freeness when the provision level is upwardly (or downwardly) distorted. Also,Chapter 4 covers the topic of public good provision under income transfer under that ethical constraint, but allows the social planner to set the surcharge fee for the purpose of excluding some agents whereas we simplify their income as exogenous one (or initial wealth). In this chapter, we study optimal public good provision and user fee in order to exclude some agents by Rawlsian or utilitarian government under lump-sum transfer, constrained by reduction of envy. In particular, we employ the exclusion technique used in Hellwig (2005), i.e., the policymaker decides the level of provision and surcharge fee paid by those making access to it, as well as uniform transfer. Different from Hellwig (2005), we introduce heterogeneity in initial wealth for agents and the envy-free constraint with respect to their one, but not to their tastes for public good. In this setting, we derive the optimal provision level and user fee, and compared to those in Hellwig (2005), for Rawlsian government, the up-charge is lower than the one derived in Hellwig (2005) in order to reduce the envy. Chapter 5 studies optimal nonlinear income tax schedule at symmetric equilibria at which two symmetric states (or tax authorities) compete in order to attract more tax-payers from the opposite. It is different from the existing papers that taxpayers’ wage are endogenously determined by production technology. The optimal tax schedule embraces not only migration effect, but also trickle-down effect coming from endogenous wage, and the migration effect stimulates the trickle-down effect. Compared to previous works, the threat of emigration never disappears in marginal tax rate for highskilled workers because emigration terms are embedded in the production and such factors have impacts on the productivities or their unit wages

Can tax payments complement high environmental, social, and governance reputational risk?

[Purpose] This study aims to investigate firms’ tax payment motivation from the point of corporate social responsibility by dissecting samples into firms with high, low, and no environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related reputational risk. [Design/methodology/approach] This paper is an empirical study using 3,981 firm-year observations from 31 countries from OECD countries through 2017 to 2019. We construct panel data and use the fixed-effects model to control unobserved firm heterogeneity. To capture legal tax avoidance, we use two types of tax avoidance measurements. [Findings] We find that paying taxes can complement the high reputational risk of ESGs. However, if ESG-related reputational risk is not large, tax payments do not affect ESG risk. Our results indicate that tax payment is a matter of firms’ ESG-related reputational risk. This paper contributes to providing evidence to show that the relationship between ESG and tax avoidance is different depending on an individual firm’s level of ESG-related reputational risk. [Originality] We create a reputation-based ESG risk data set that addresses the endogeneity associated with the manager’s decision and simultaneity bias to determine the relationship between ESG and tax avoidance. Also, this is one of few studies that examine the relationship between CSR and tax avoidance internationally

Disability Weights Measurement for 17 Diseases in Japan: A Survey Based on Medical Professionals

When judging a population’s health to determine disability-adjusted life years, disability weight is a tool for measuring the severity of disability caused by a disease. However, previous studies have pointed out that surveys targeting ordinary citizens produce unclear disability weight values. Therefore, in an attempt to obtain clearer estimations, we conduct a paper-based questionnaire survey of medical professionals—nurses with over ten years of experience—believed to have extensive knowledge of diseases and experience in patient care. We find that disability weight estimations based on the survey of medical professionals presents higher values than those based on a survey of ordinary citizens using the same estimation approach, especially for non-terminal-stage diseases. This suggests that medical-professionals-based surveys may correct the underestimated disability weights of non-terminal diseases (e.g., early stage of cancers and mellitus) found through ordinary-citizens-based surveys. Moreover, we illustrate that depressive disorder and early-stage cancers have almost the same health loss since their disability weights are similar. While regulating policy, it is recommended that more attention be paid to non-terminal diseases and depression

Essais sur les finances publiques et le bien public fourni par le secteur public

Le résumé en français n'a pas été communiqué par l'auteur.This thesis deals with several theoretical subjects about optimal fiscal and government policy. It contains my four works about tax and other redistributive policy, starting with the general introductory survey as the first chapter. Chapter 2 compares ad-valorem and specific taxation in models where a representative consumer with an exogenous income has both a quality and a quantity choice under perfect competition. In the setting, while ad-valorem tax causes income effect only, specific tax causes both income effect and substitution effect. Therefore, advalorem tax decreases consumer demand for both quality and quantity; on the other hand, specific tax decreases consumer demand for quantity. However, the sign of consumer demand for quality is ambiguous and is determined by the curvature of marginal utility on quantity. Additionally, using a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function and a linear price function, we show that ad-valorem tax is superior to specific tax except for the Leontief preference under which the two forms of commodity taxes generate the same tax revenue. The substitution effect caused by specific tax disappears if the elasticity of substitution converges to zero. In Chapter 3, We examine optimal taxation and public good provision by a government which takes reduction of envy into consideration as one of the constraints. We adopt the notion of extended envy-freeness proposed by Diamantaras and Thomson(1990), called λ-equitability. We derive the modified Samuelson rule at an optimum income tax, and show that, using a constant elasticity of substitution utility function, the direction of distorting the original Samuelson rule to relax λ envy free constraints is crucially determined by the elasticity of substitution. Furthermore, we numerically show that the level of public good increases (or decreases) in the degree of envy-freeness when the provision level is upwardly (or downwardly) distorted. Also,Chapter 4 covers the topic of public good provision under income transfer under that ethical constraint, but allows the social planner to set the surcharge fee for the purpose of excluding some agents whereas we simplify their income as exogenous one (or initial wealth). In this chapter, we study optimal public good provision and user fee in order to exclude some agents by Rawlsian or utilitarian government under lump-sum transfer, constrained by reduction of envy. In particular, we employ the exclusion technique used in Hellwig (2005), i.e., the policymaker decides the level of provision and surcharge fee paid by those making access to it, as well as uniform transfer. Different from Hellwig (2005), we introduce heterogeneity in initial wealth for agents and the envy-free constraint with respect to their one, but not to their tastes for public good. In this setting, we derive the optimal provision level and user fee, and compared to those in Hellwig (2005), for Rawlsian government, the up-charge is lower than the one derived in Hellwig (2005) in order to reduce the envy. Chapter 5 studies optimal nonlinear income tax schedule at symmetric equilibria at which two symmetric states (or tax authorities) compete in order to attract more tax-payers from the opposite. It is different from the existing papers that taxpayers’ wage are endogenously determined by production technology. The optimal tax schedule embraces not only migration effect, but also trickle-down effect coming from endogenous wage, and the migration effect stimulates the trickle-down effect. Compared to previous works, the threat of emigration never disappears in marginal tax rate for highskilled workers because emigration terms are embedded in the production and such factors have impacts on the productivities or their unit wages

Envy-free Pricing for Impure Public Good

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [grant number 26000001] and by the 4th Environmental Economics Research Fund of the Japanese Ministry of EnvironmentIn this paper, we study optimal public good provision with congestion and user fees to exclude some agents under lump-sum tax/transfer, constrained by the condition of reduction of envy. We adopt the λ envy-free constraint proposed by Diamantaras and Thomson (1990), and employ the exclusion technique used in Hellwig (2005), i.e., the policymaker decides the level of provision and user fee paid by people accessing a public good, as well as a uniform level of tax/transfer. We characterize the optimal public sector pricing rule that depends on utilitarian distributive concerns and envy reduction concerns, which are in conflict with each other. We show that if the social welfare function is strictly increasing and strictly concave and the government is not concerned with reducing envy, the user fee is greater than the marginal congestion cost. Additionally, we show that if the government reflects the notion of equality of opportunity under the reduction of envy, the user fee is lower than the marginal congestion cost. These results imply that the two fairness concerns are countervailing with regard to the surcharge fee.23 p

Envy-free Pricing for Impure Public Good

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [grant number 26000001] and by the 4th Environmental Economics Research Fund of the Japanese Ministry of Environmen

Development of serological assays to identify Helicobacter suis and H. pylori infections

Summary: Helicobacter suis, hosted by hogs, is the most prevalent gastric non-Helicobacter pylori Helicobacter species found in humans. Recent studies have suggested that H. suis infection has caused many cases of gastric disease, but the transmission route from hogs remains unclear. Diagnostic methods based on H. suis urease activity often yield negative results, and there is no reliable method for diagnosing H. suis infection in clinical practice without gastric biopsy specimens. This study presents the world’s first use of whole-bacterial cell ELISA to simultaneously assess H. suis and H. pylori infections. The ELISAs showed high accuracy, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.96, 100% sensitivity, 92.6% specificity, 76.9% positive predictive value, and 100% negative predictive value for the H. suis test, and an area under the ROC curve of 0.92, 88.2% sensitivity, 87.5% specificity, 65.2% positive predictive value, and 96.6% negative predictive value for the H. pylori test