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Taxation without Commitment

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  • Reis, Catarina
Abstract
This paper considers a Ramsey model of linear capital and labor income taxation in which a benevolent government cannot commit ex-ante to a sequence of taxes for the future. In this setup, if the government is allowed to borrow and lend to the consumers, the optimal capital income tax is zero in the long run. This result stands in marked contrast with the recent literature on optimal taxation without commitment, which imposes budget balance and typically finds that the optimal capital income tax does not converge to zero. Since it is efficient to backload incentives, breaking budget balance allows the government to generate surplus that reduces its debt or increases its assets over time until the lack of commitment is no longer binding and the economy is back in the full commitment solution. Therefore, while the lack of commitment does not change the optimal capital tax in the long run, it may impose an upper bound on the level of long run debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Reis, Catarina, 2006. "Taxation without Commitment," MPRA Paper 2071, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:2071
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Stefania Albanesi & Roc Armenter, 2012. "Intertemporal Distortions in the Second Best," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1271-1307.
    2. Aguiar, Mark & Amador, Manuel, 2016. "Fiscal policy in debt constrained economies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 37-75.
    3. Zhigang Feng, 2015. "Time‐consistent optimal fiscal policy over the business cycle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(1), pages 189-221, March.
    4. Jaakkola, Niko & Spiro, Daniel & van Benthem, Arthur A., 2019. "Finders, keepers?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 17-33.
    5. Brendon, Charles & Ellison, Martin, 2018. "Time-consistently undominated policies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87176, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Giorgia Giovannetti & Ramon Marimon & Pedro Teles, 2008. "Nominal Debt as a Burden on Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 493-514, July.
    7. Yusuke Kinai, 2011. "Optimal Degree of Commitment in a Tax Policy," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 11-11, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    8. Acemoglu, Daron & Golosov, Mikhail & Tsyvinski, Aleh, 2011. "Political economy of Ramsey taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 467-475, August.
    9. Reis, Catarina, 2012. "Social discounting and incentive compatible fiscal policy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(6), pages 2469-2482.
    10. Takashi Kamihigashi, 2014. "Elementary results on solutions to the bellman equation of dynamic programming: existence, uniqueness, and convergence," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(2), pages 251-273, June.
    11. Ricardo Nunes & Davide Debortoli, 2007. "Political Disagreement, Lack of Commitment and the Level of Debt," 2007 Meeting Papers 725, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Takashi Kamihigashi, 2014. "An order-theoretic approach to dynamic programming: an exposition," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 13-21, April.
    13. José-María Da-Rocha & Eduardo-Luis Giménez & Francisco-Xavier Lores, 2013. "Self-fulfilling crises with default and devaluation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 53(3), pages 499-535, August.
    14. Alex Schmitt, 2018. "Optimal Carbon Pricing and Income Taxation Without Commitment," ifo Working Paper Series 274, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    15. Salvador Ortigueira & Joana Pereira, 2007. "Markov-Perfect Optimal Fiscal Policy: The Case of Unbalanced Budgets," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/41, European University Institute.
    16. Martin Ellison & Charles Brendon, 2015. "Time-Consistent Institutional Design," 2015 Meeting Papers 495, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Begoña Domínguez, 2020. "Sustaining Ramsey plans with one-period bonds," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(2), pages 387-410, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal Policy; Optimal Taxation; Incidence; Debt;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

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