The promise of positive optimal taxation: normative diversity and a role for equal sacrifice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Weinzierl, Matthew
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.06.012
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 128-142
• 关键词: Optimal taxation; Tagging; Equal sacrifice

摘要

A prominent assumption in modem optimal tax research is that the objective of taxation is Utilitarian. I present new survey evidence that most people reject this assumption's implications for several prominent features of tax policy, instead preferring tax policies based at least in part on a classic alternative objective: the principle of Equal Sacrifice. I generalize the standard model to accommodate this preference for a mixed objective, proposing a method by which to make disparate criteria commensurable while respecting Pareto efficiency. Then, I show that optimal policy in this generalized model, calibrated to the survey evidence and U.S. microdata, is capable of quantitatively matching several features of existing tax policy that are incompatible in the conventional model but widely endorsed in the survey and reality, including the coexistence of substantial redistribution and limited tagging. Together, these findings demonstrate the potential of a positive theory of optimal taxation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.