Extended producer responsibility in oligopoly

I investigate the optimal environmental tax under a policy based on extended producer responsibility (EPR) in oligopoly markets. I introduce the recycling market and explicitly consider how these policies affect the incentive for recycling. I derive the optimal tax rule, which depends on the weighted sum of the markup in the product market and the markdown in the recycling market. In contrast to the existing works that emphasize that the optimal tax rate is lower than the marginal external damage, I find that the optimal tax rate can be higher than the marginal external damage.

The Theory of Optimal Taxation: What is the Policy Relevance?

The paper discusses the implications of optimal tax theory for the debates on uniform commodity taxation and neutral capital income taxation. While strong administrative and political economy arguments in favor of uniform and neutral taxation remain, recent advances in optimal tax theory suggest that the information needed to implement the differentiated taxation prescribed by optimal tax theory may be easier to obtain than previously believed. The paper also points to the strong similarity between optimal commodity tax rules and the rules for optimal source-based capital income taxation.optimal taxation; uniform taxation; tax neutrality

Status, environmental externality, and optimal tax programs

This paper studies the designs of optimal tax programs in OLG economies when first, consumption of one household lowers (status) utility of others, and second, consumption harms the environment. Status seeking raises optimal consumption tax rates, and lowers optimal tax rates on capital income.consumption tax

The Dual Role of Money and Optimal Financial Taxes

This paper reconsiders the optimal taxation of money and other financial assets.The optimal tax formulae reflect that money provides liquidity services and is a saving vehicle.In fact, it is useful to reformulate the optimal tax problem to allow for separate taxes on the liquidity and saving functions of money.This reformulation allows one to better understand the original optimal tax problem.The possible optimality of a subsidy on borrowing, for instance, can be explained if it is noted that the theoretically correct measure of savings reflects that money as well as nonmonetary assets can serve as saving vehicles.money;savings;taxation

Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems

The theory of optimal taxation has , for the pas two decades , been the reigning normative approach of taxation. This paper argues that , in its current state, optimal tax theory is incomplete as a guide to action concerning many critical issues in tax policy. It is incomplete because it has not yet come to terms with taxation as a system of coercively collecting revenues from individuals who will tend to resist. The coercive nature of collection taxes implies that the resource cost of implementing a tax system have been and will continue to be a critical determinant of appropriate tax policy. The paper first presents the three cornerstone propositions of optimal tax theory, and then it discusses the influence of these propositions on recent tax policy developments. It concludes by sketching an alternative to optimal taxation, called the theory of optimal tax systems, which embraces the insights of optimal taxation but also considers the technology of raising taxes and the constraints placed upon tax policy by that technology. The optimal tax systems perspective is shown to shed light on the choice of tax instruments, the problem of tax evasion, and the appropriate tax treatment of capital income.

The effect of the government temporal horizon on the optimal tax structure

The government temporal horizon is shown to be a key determinant of the optimal tax structure in an endogenous growth model of the US economy. As the temporal horizon lengthens, wage taxation is gradually substituted by consumption taxation. The optimal tax mix depends notably on the leisure specification.Endogenous growth

Optimal tax progressivity in unionised labour markets; what are the driving forces?

In labour markets with collective wage bargaining, progressivity of the labour income tax creates a trade-off that allows the degree of progressivity to be determined optimally. On the one hand, wages are lowered and unemployment decreases, on the other hand, the individual labour supply decision is distorted at the hours-of-work margin. The optimal level of tax progressivity within this trade-off is determined using a numerical general equilibrium model with imperfect competition on the goods market, collective wage bargaining and a labour-supply module calibrated to empirically plausible elasticity values. The model is calibrated to macroeconomic and institutional parameters of both the OECD average and a number of individual OECD countries. In most cases the optimal degree of tax progressivity is below the actual level. A decomposition approach shows that the optimal level is increased by high unemployment and by the general tax level.

On the Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in the Open Economy

The optimal taxation of foreign and domestic investors' incomes is examined with a simple overlapping-generations model. Even when tax rates are allowed to discriminate between these groups,the optimal tax rates on both domestic and foreign investors' incomes in the small open economy are identical and equal to the optimal rate of tax in the closed economy. In light of the emphasis in the literature on the extent to which the elasticity of international flows might lower optimal capital income taxes, this conclusion is quite a surprise. In the large open economy, the optimal tax rate on foreign investors'income alone is a weighted average of one and the small economy tax rate. The optimal tax rate on domestic income is, again, unaffected by the openness ofthe economy. When a uniform tax rate must be set in the large open economy, it is generally higher than the optimal tax rate for a closed economy, a conclusion contrary to the conventional wisdom. However, a higher elasticity of international capital flows is associated with a lower tax rate, as expected, butthe rate remains above the closed-economy rate. In summary, openness matters for optimal tax policy, primarily in the case of the large economy. The reason is mainly the ability to burden foreign investors with a tax liability.

Environmental tax in a green market

We examine the impact of an emission tax in a green market characterized by consumers' environmental awareness and competition between firms for both environmental quality and product prices. The unique aspect of this model comes from the assumption that the cost for an increase in quality is fixed. We show that the emission tax improves welfare, thanks to a decline in pollution and despite an accentuation of product differentiation. The higher the marginal environmental damage is, the higher the optimal tax will be. The optimal tax, however, becomes lower than the marginal damage when the market is not too large. Finally, when marginal environmental damage is not too low, the optimal tax leads to a green product monopoly.

Tax Aversion, Optimal Tax Rates, and Indexation

Taking account of the costs of tax evasion and avoidance activity together with the government's costs of tax enforcement it is shown that the optimal point on a stylized Laffer curve is located on the positively sloped region, not at the maximum point of the, curve. The analysis eschews the usual supply-side-type rationale for the Laffer curve and shows that such a curve can arise solely as a consequence of the optimizing tax aversion activity of a utility maximizing economic agent. The analysis further implies that indexation to inflation may be warranted by considerations of economic efficiency.