Download or read book Optimal Income Taxation with Adverse Selection in the Labor Market written by Stefanie Stantcheva and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper studies optimal linear and nonlinear redistributive income taxation when there is adverse selection in the labor market. Unlike in standard taxation models, firms do not know workers' abilities and competitively screen them through nonlinear compensation contracts. The equilibrium concept used is the Miyazaki-Wilson-Spence (MWS) one, adapted to a labor market with taxes. The government observes neither abilities nor the private market contracts and has to foresee the reaction of firms, in addition to workers. Adverse selection leads to different responses to taxes than in the standard Mirrlees (1971) model, because of the use of work hours as a screening tool by firms, which for higher talent workers results in a rat race. Accordingly, the new optimal income tax formulas include corrective terms for the rat race and redistributive terms take into account the informational rents and cross-subsidies received by lower productivity workers. The most surprising result is that, if the government has sufficiently strong redistributive goals, welfare is higher when there is adverse selection than when there is not. This result is due to the rat race in which high productivity workers are caught, which limits their flexibility to react adversely to distortive taxation. I draw the link to policy praxis by discussing various policies that a government can use to endogenously affect adverse selection. The model also has practical implications for the interpretation, estimation, and use of taxable income elasticities, which are central to optimal tax design.

Download or read book Optimal Wage Redistribution in the Presence of Adverse Selection in the Labor Market written by Spencer Bastani and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Adverse Selection in the Labor Market written by Bruce C. Greenwald and published by Dissertations-G. This book was released on 1979 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On the Optimality of a Minimum Wage written by Mathias Hungerbühler and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On Optimal Personal Income Taxation written by Paweł Doligalski and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How should we tax people's incomes? I address this question from three di erent angles. The rst chapter describes the optimal income tax when people can hide earnings by working in a shadow economy. The second chapter examines the optimal taxation of employees when rms can insure their workers and help them avoid taxes. The nal chapter shows that a basic income policy - an unconditional cash transfer to every citizen - can, under certain conditions, be justi ed on e ciency grounds. In `Optimal Redistribution with a Shadow Economy', written jointly with Luis Rojas, we examine the constrained e cient allocations in the Mirrlees (1971) model with an informal sector. There are two labor markets: formal and informal. The planner observes only income from the formal market. We show that the shadow economy can be welfare improving through two channels. It can be used as a shelter against tax distortions, raising the e ciency of labor supply, and as a screening device, bene ting redistribution. We calibrate the model to Colombia, where 58% of workers are employed informally. The optimal share of shadow workers is close to 22% for the Rawlsian planner and less than 1% for the Utilitarian planner. Furthermore, we nd that the optimal tax schedule is very di erent then the one implied by the Mirrlees (1971) model without the informal sector. New Dynamic Public Finance describes the optimal income tax in the economy without private insurance opportunities. In `Optimal Taxation with Permanent Employment Contracts' I extend this framework by introducing permanent employment contracts which facilitate insurance provision within rms. The optimal tax system becomes remarkably simple, as the government outsources most of the insurance provision to employers and focuses mainly on redistribution. When the government wants to redistribute to the poor, a dual labor market can be optimal. Less productive workers are hired on a xed-term basis and are partially insured by the government, while the more productive ones enjoy the full insurance provided by the permanent employment. Such arrangement can be preferred, as it minimizes the tax avoidance of top earners. I provide empirical evidence consistent with the theory and characterize the constrained e cient allocations for Italy. When does paying a strictly positive compensation in every state of the world improves incentives to exert e ort? In 'Minimal Compensation and Incentives for E ort' I show that in the typical model of moral hazard it happens only when the e ort is a strict complement to consumption. If the cost of e ort is monetary, a positive minimal compensation strengthens incentives only when the agent is prudent and always does so when the marginal utility of consumption is unbounded at zero consumption. I discuss potential applications of these results in personal income taxation. The minimal compensation can be interpreted as a basic income - an unconditional cash transfer to every citizen. Therefore, I provide an e ciency rationale for the basic income.

Download or read book Optimal Income Taxation and Job Choice written by Robin Boadway and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper, we study optimal income taxation when different job types exist for workers of different skills. Each job type has some feasible range of incomes from which workers choose by varying labor supply. Workers are more productive than others in the jobs that suit them best. The model combines features of the classic optimal tax literature with labor variability along the intensive margin, with the extensive-margin approach where workers make discrete job choices and/or participation decisions. We find that first-best maximin utility can be achieved in the second-best, and marginal tax rates below the top can be negative or zero.

Download or read book Optimal Student Loans and Graduate Tax Under Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection written by Robert J. Gary-Bobo and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Tax Systems written by Joel Slemrod and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An approach to taxation that goes beyond an emphasis on tax rates to consider such aspects as administration, compliance, and remittance. Despite its theoretical elegance, the standard optimal tax model has significant limitations. In this book, Joel Slemrod and Christian Gillitzer argue that tax analysis must move beyond the emphasis on optimal tax rates and bases to consider such aspects of taxation as administration, compliance, and remittance. Slemrod and Gillitzer explore what they term a tax-systems approach, which takes tax evasion seriously; revisits the issue of remittance, or who writes the check to cover tax liability (employer or employee, retailer or consumer); incorporates administrative and compliance costs; recognizes a range of behavioral responses to tax rates; considers nonstandard instruments, including tax base breadth and enforcement effort; and acknowledges that tighter enforcement is sometimes a more socially desirable way to raise revenue than an increase in statutory tax rates. Policy makers, Slemrod and Gillitzer argue, would be well advised to recognize the interrelationship of tax rates, bases, enforcement, and administration, and acknowledge that tax policy is really tax-systems policy.

Download or read book Unemployment and Insurance written by Sherwin Rosen and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper elaborates equilibrium properties of contract labor markets when cost barriers limit labor mobility in response to demand and productivity shifts. Unemployment is sustained because the marginal value of labor is not equated across all firms; however the equilibrium contract optimally allocates a worker's time between market and nonmarket uses, given transactions cost-mobility constraints. Contracts provide full unemployment insurance for risks that are diversifiable by pooling among firms. Nondiversifiable (macro) risks are only partially shifted,largely through self-insurance (contingency saving). Increasing diversifiable risk has social value, similar to the value of an option. Increasing nondiversifiable risk has negative value because it reduces lifetime consumption. The main empirical implication of contract theory is shown to be closely related to the permanent income hypothesis and establishes linkages between labor activities and consumption behavior. It is atheory of consumption rigidity rather than wage rigidity. Another empirical implication is that unemployment incidence is proportional to comparative advantage in normarket production. Layoffs are ordered by workers' relative productivity in nonmarket compared with market sectors. The theory is used to analyze some features of the U.S. employment system. Its empirical support is briefly reviewed.

Download or read book The New Dynamic Public Finance written by Narayana R. Kocherlakota and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Optimal tax design attempts to resolve a well-known trade-off: namely, that high taxes are bad insofar as they discourage people from working, but good to the degree that, by redistributing wealth, they help insure people against productivity shocks. Until recently, however, economic research on this question either ignored people's uncertainty about their future productivities or imposed strong and unrealistic functional form restrictions on taxes. In response to these problems, the new dynamic public finance was developed to study the design of optimal taxes given only minimal restrictions on the set of possible tax instruments, and on the nature of shocks affecting people in the economy. In this book, Narayana Kocherlakota surveys and discusses this exciting new approach to public finance. An important book for advanced PhD courses in public finance and macroeconomics, The New Dynamic Public Finance provides a formal connection between the problem of dynamic optimal taxation and dynamic principal-agent contracting theory. This connection means that the properties of solutions to principal-agent problems can be used to determine the properties of optimal tax systems. The book shows that such optimal tax systems necessarily involve asset income taxes, which may depend in sophisticated ways on current and past labor incomes. It also addresses the implications of this new approach for qualitative properties of optimal monetary policy, optimal government debt policy, and optimal bequest taxes. In addition, the book describes computational methods for approximate calculation of optimal taxes, and discusses possible paths for future research.

Download or read book The Labor Market and Economic Adjustment written by Pierre-Richard Agénor and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1995-11-01 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the role of the labor market in the transmission process of adjustment policies in developing countries. It begins by reviewing the recent evidence regarding the functioning of these markets. It then studies the implications of wage inertia, nominal contracts, labor market segmentation, and impediments to labor mobility for stabilization policies. The effect of labor market reforms on economic flexibility and the channels through which labor market imperfections alter the effects of structural adjustment measures are discussed next. The last part of the paper identifies a variety of issues that may require further investigation, such as the link between changes in relative wages and the distributional effects of adjustment policies.

Download or read book Top Incomes written by A. B. Atkinson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 984 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rapidly growing area of economic research investigates the top of the income distribution using data from income tax records. This volume brings together studies of top incomes for twelve countries from around the world, including China, India, Japan, Argentina and Indonesia. Together with the first volume, published in 2007, the studies cover twenty two countries. They have a long time span, the earliest data relating to 1875 (for Norway), allowing recent developments to be placed in historical perspective. The volume describes in detail the source data and the methods employed. It will be an invaluable reference source for researchers in the field. Individual country chapters deal with the specific nature of the data for each of the countries, and describe the long-term evolution of top income shares. In the countries as a whole, dramatic changes have taken place at the top of the income distribution. Over the first part of the century, top income shares fell markedly. This largely took the form of a reduction in capital incomes. The different authors examine the impact of the First and Second World Wars, contrasting countries that were and were not engaged. They consider the impact of depressions and banking crises, and pay particular attention to the impact of progressive taxation. In the last 30 years, the shares of top incomes have increased markedly in the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries, reflecting the increased dispersion of earnings. The volume includes statistics on the much-discussed top pay and bonuses, providing a global perspective that discusses important differences between countries such as the lesser increase in Continental Europe. This book, together with volume 1, documents this interesting development and explores the underlying causes. The findings are brought together in a final summary chapter by Atkinson, Piketty and Saez.

Download or read book The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets written by Tito Boeri and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most labor economics textbooks pay little attention to actual labor markets, taking as reference a perfectly competitive market in which losing a job is not a big deal. The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets is the only textbook to focus on imperfect labor markets and to provide a systematic framework for analyzing how labor market institutions operate. This expanded, updated, and thoroughly revised second edition includes a new chapter on labor-market discrimination; quantitative examples; data and programming files enabling users to replicate key results of the literature; exercises at the end of each chapter; and expanded technical appendixes. The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets examines the many institutions that affect the behavior of workers and employers in imperfect labor markets. These include minimum wages, employment protection legislation, unemployment benefits, active labor market policies, working-time regulations, family policies, equal opportunity legislation, collective bargaining, early retirement programs, education and migration policies, payroll taxes, and employment-conditional incentives. Written for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students, the book carefully defines and measures these institutions to accurately characterize their effects, and discusses how these institutions are today being changed by political and economic forces. Expanded, thoroughly revised second edition New chapter on labor-market discrimination New quantitative examples New data sets enabling users to replicate key results of the literature New end-of-chapter exercises Expanded technical appendixes Unique focus on institutions in imperfect labor markets Integrated framework and systematic coverage Self-contained chapters on each of the most important labor-market institutions

Download or read book Optimal Redistributive Taxation written by Matti Tuomala and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax systems raise large amounts of revenue for funding public sector's activities, and tax/transfer policy, together with public provision of education, health care, and social services, play a crucial role in treating the symptoms and the causes of poverty. The normative analysis is crucial for tax/transfer design because it makes it possible to assess separately how changes in the redistributive criterion of the government, and changes in the size of the behavioural responses to taxes and transfers, affect the optimal tax/transfer system. Optimal tax theory provides a way of thinking rigorously about these trade-offs. Written primarily for graduate students and researchers, this volume is intended as a textbook and research monograph, connecting optimal tax theory to tax policy. It comments on some policy recommendations of the Mirrlees Review, and builds on the authors work on public economics, optimal tax theory, behavioural public economics, and income inequality. The book explains in depth the Mirrlees model and presents various extensions of it. The first set of extensions considers changing the preferences for consumption and work: behavioural-economic modifications (such as positional externalities, prospect theory, paternalism, myopic behaviour and habit formation) but also heterogeneous work preferences (besides differences in earnings ability). The second set of modifications concerns the objective of the government. The book explains the differences in optimal redistributive tax systems when governments - instead of maximising social welfare - minimise poverty or maximise social welfare based on rank order or charitable conservatism social welfare functions. The third set of extensions considers extending the Mirrlees income tax framework to allow for differential commodity taxes, capital income taxation, public goods provision, public provision of private goods, and taxation commodities that generate externalities. The fourth set of extensions considers incorporating a number of important real-word extensions such as tagging of tax schedules to certain groups of tax payers. In all extensions, the book illustrates the main mechanisms using advanced numerical simulations.

Download or read book Optimal Unemployment Insurance written by Andreas Pollak and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2007 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designing a good unemployment insurance scheme is a delicate matter. In a system with no or little insurance, households may be subject to a high income risk, whereas excessively generous unemployment insurance systems are known to lead to high unemployment rates and are costly both from a fiscal perspective and for society as a whole. Andreas Pollak investigates what an optimal unemployment insurance system would look like, i.e. a system that constitutes the best possible compromise between income security and incentives to work. Using theoretical economic models and complex numerical simulations, he studies the effects of benefit levels and payment durations on unemployment and welfare. As the models allow for considerable heterogeneity of households, including a history-dependent labor productivity, it is possible to analyze how certain policies affect individuals in a specific age, wealth or skill group. The most important aspect of an unemployment insurance system turns out to be the benefits paid to the long-term unemployed. If this parameter is chosen too high, a large number of households may get caught in a long spell of unemployment with little chance of finding work again. Based on the predictions in these models, the so-called "Hartz IV" labor market reform recently adopted in Germany should have highly favorable effects on the unemployment rates and welfare in the long run.

Download or read book Designing Fiscal Redistribution The Role of Universal and Targeted Transfers written by Mr.David Coady and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a growing debate on the relative merits of universal and targeted social assistance transfers in achieving income redistribution objectives. While the benefits of targeting are clear, i.e., a larger poverty impact for a given transfer budget or lower fiscal cost for a given poverty impact, in practice targeting also comes with various costs, including incentive, administrative, social and political costs. The appropriate balance between targeted and universal transfers will therefore depend on how countries decide to trade-off these costs and benefits as well as on the potential for redistribution through taxes. This paper discusses the trade-offs that arise in different country contexts and the potential for strengthening fiscal redistribution in advanced and developing countries, including through expanding transfer coverage and progressive tax financing.

Download or read book Handbook of Public Economics written by Alan J. Auerbach and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Handbook of Public Economics, vol. 5, top scholars provide context and order to new research about mechanisms that underlie both public finance theories and applications. These fundamental subjects follow the recent, steady movement away from rational decision-making and toward more personalized approaches to tax generation and expenditure, especially in terms of the use of psychological methods and financial incentives. Closely scrutinized subjects include new research in empirical (instead of theoretical) public finance, the methods for measuring taxes (both in revenue generation and expenditure), and the roles that taxes play in specific settings, such as emerging economies, urban settings, charitable giving, and among political entities (cities, counties, states, countries). Contributors look at both the "tax" and "expenditure" sides of public finance, emphasizing recent influences that psychology and philosophy have exerted in economics with articles on behavioral finance, charitable giving, and dynamic taxation. To a field enjoying rapid growth, their articles bring context and order, illuminating the mechanisms that underlie both public finance theories and applications. Editor Raj Chetty is the recipient of the 2013 John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association Focuses on new approaches to both revenue generation and expenditures in public finance Presents coherent summaries of subjects in public economics that stretch from methodologies to applications Makes details about public economics accessible to scholars in fields outside economics