Monopoly Power and Optimal Taxation of Labor Income

This paper studies the Ramsey problem of optimal labor income taxation in a simple model economy which deviates from a first best representative agent economy in three important aspects, namely, flat rate second best tax, monopoly power in intermediate product market, and monopolistic wage setting. There are three key findings: (1) In order to correct for monopoly distortion the Ramsey tax prescription is to set the labor income tax rate lower than its competitive market analogue; (2) Government’s optimal tax policy is independent of its fiscal treatment of distributed pure profits; and (3) For higher levels of monopoly distortions Ramsey policy is more desirable than the first best policy. The key analytical results are verified by a calibration which fits the model to the stylized facts of the US economy.Optimal taxation, Monopoly power, Ramsey policy

Optimal taxation and redistribution in a two sector two class agents' economy

We examine the optimal taxation problem in a two sector neoclassical economy with workers and capitalists. We show that in a steady state of this economy the optimal policy may involve a capital income tax or subsidy, dfferential taxation of labour income and redistribution. The level and the direction of the redistribution associated with such an optimal policy depends on the pre tax allocation of capital but not on the social weights attached to the different groups of taxpayers. Excess production of consumption goods creates a difference between the social marginal values of consumption and investment which in turns violates the production efficiency condition. Such a difference can be undone by taxing capital income from the consumption sector, and with this optimal policy the government can implement a redistribution scheme where both workers and capitalists bear the burden of distorting taxes. On the contrary, an optimal policy that involves a capital income subsidy in the production of consumption can implement allocations that minimize the relative price difference between consumption and investment that resulted from the excess production of investment goods

On policy relevance of Ramsey tax rules

The Ramsey approach to optimal taxation and Ramsey tax rules have amassed substance in economic theory. However, they are often criticized on grounds of practicality, fairness, feasibility and some other aspects of designing actual tax policy. This paper contests these criticisms; it discusses how closely or remotely Ramsey rules are followed in designing tax policy. It argues that the most of these common criticisms, be it realistic, such as administrative and compliance costs, or be it rather abstract, such as fairness, are either unimportant or irrelevant for Ramsey taxation. The more important inadequacy of the traditional Ramsey tax models is the selective modelling of incentive effects of tax reforms and their limited applicability for designing tax policy in developing countries

Current account dynamics and capital mobility in Asian small economies

This paper explores current account dynamics in eight small economies of Asia to examine whether or not capital flows have been excessive in these countries. Standard assumptions of perfect capital mobility and small open economy are jointly instrumental in simplifying theoretical tractability of many open economy models. In empirical estimations, however, the identification of a small open economy is often oversimplified, which makes celebrated results, such as excessive or too low capital flows in OECD economies, questionable. This paper establishes that the actual extent of capital mobility in small open economies cannot be generally too high or too low. This in turns implies that the general idea of excessive capital flows in small open economies requires revision

The impact of price regulations on regional welfare and agricultural productivity in China

The nineties' agricultural reform in China that was aimed at deregulating the agricultural market eventually resulted in a huge drop in agricultural production and a high rate of in�ation in agricultural prices; this apparently motivated the government to take over the control of agricultural prices in 1998. We examine how and to what extent this reform a¤ected the productivity and welfare of grain farmers in China at the regional level. We fi�nd that the price regulation that destroyed the incentive to exert more effort adversely affected the growth in agricultural productivity but contributed to the growth in farmers' welfare. Although the price regulations resulted in short term improvement in welfare across all the regions, for the long run such regulations can result in larger drop in agricultural production because of its negative impact on incentives to produce more

Optimal taxation in a two sector economy with heterogeneous agents

In this paper we show that in a two sector economy with heterogeneous agents and competitive markets, in a steady state the optimal capital income tax rate is in general different from zero. The optimal tax policy in this setting depends on the relative price difference. In a two sector economy capital and labour margins are interdependent, which is why a difference between investment good’s price and consumption good’s price allows the government to tax capital income in one sector and undo the tax distortion by differential labour income taxation. This policy serves efficiency purpose as it restores production efficiency. For instance, if investment goods are more expensive than consumption goods, it is optimal to tax capital income in consumption sector, and set zero capital income tax and lower labour income tax in investment sector. This policy discourages work and investment in consumption sector, and encourages agents to shift capital and working time to investment sector. This increases production in investment sector and restores production efficiency. In a model with two classes of agents, we show that this policy can also serve redistributive purpose

Revisiting the capital tax ambiguity result

We provide a welfare based interpretation of the capital tax ambiguity result (due to Guo & Lansing, 1999). We show that the sign ambiguity of optimal capital tax rate in an imperfectly competitive economy is mainly due to the welfare cost of investment. The substitution and income effects of profit seeking investment reinforce each other which create a deadweight loss in welfare. Investors cannot perceive this effect and never invest at the right level. This loss is perceived only by the government which motivates capital taxation

Reforms, incentives, welfare and productivity growth in Chinese wheat production

Following the rural reform in 1978 a series of agricultural reforms were introduced in China with an aim to create incentives for the farmers to produce more. The nineties' price reform that was aimed at deregulating the agricultural market eventually resulted in a huge drop in agricultural production; this apparently motivated the government to take over the control of agricultural prices in 1998. For a dataset that covers all the major rural reforms undertaken in China, we examine how and to what extent these reforms affected the productivity and welfare of wheat farmers in China. We find that the nineties price reforms resulted in a high magnitude of effort-response from wheat farmers which led to a faster growth of the incentive component of productivity

Interaction and non-neutral effects of factors in Chinese wheat production

In this paper we examine the role of the interaction between labour productivity and the use of factors in explaining the recent (1998-2007) 11% decline in wheat production in China. We employ a non-neutral stochastic production frontier approach that enables us to identify the interaction and non-neutral effects of factors that are used in wheat production. For regional level wheat production in China we find that identifying the technical inefficiency e¤ects and the non-neutral effects of factors assist big time in explaining the recent decline in wheat production. A higher level of labour productivity can stimulate efficiency gains in production, but adding more labour to the workforce or adding to the stock of machinery power can depress this potential marginal efficiency gain. We also find significant marginal efficiency gain of land reforms that add to the stock of cultivable land. Our results indicate that future agricultural reforms in China should address the incentive scheme for labour

Optimal taxation in dynamic general equilibrium

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