The effects of firm specific taxes and government mandates with an application to the US unemployment insurance program

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anderson, PM; Meyer, BD
• 署名单位: Dartmouth College; National Bureau of Economic Research; Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(96)01624-6
• 发表日期: 1997
• 页码: 119-145
• 关键词: tax incidence; mandated benefits; dead-weight loss

摘要

We examine the common, but unexamined, case of a tax or government mandate whose cost differs across firms within the same labor market. Our theoretical model shows that this variation can lead to employment reallocation across firms and dead-weight losses, even if there is no aggregate employment effect. Using firm level unemployment insurance tax data, we find that while the market level tax is mostly born by the worker, individual firms can only pass on a small share of the within market differences. Thus, in some cases differences in taxes across firms can lead to large dead-weight losses.