Taxing family size and subsidizing child-specific commodities?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cigno, A; Pettini, A
• 署名单位: University of Florence
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00119-0
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 75-90
• 关键词: endogenous and exogenous fertility; child-specific commodities; optimal linear taxation; child benefits

摘要

The effects and optimal choice of policy instruments directly affecting the welfare of parents and children are examined within the context of a household economics model. If fertility were exogenous, and households differed in number of children only, a first best could be implement through a grant conditional on family size. Outside this very special case, public intervention is either not justifiable on distributional grounds, or involves taxing child-specific commodities less than adult-specific commodities. If fertility is endogenous, family size must be taxed or subsidized according to whether household expenditure on children is decreasing or increasing in the mother's wage rate. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.