Social discounting and incentive compatible fiscal policy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Reis, Catarina
• 署名单位: Universidade Catolica Portuguesa
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2012.09.001
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 2469-2482
• 关键词: Fiscal policy; optimal taxation; incidence; debt

摘要

This paper considers a representative agent model of linear capital and labor income taxation in which the government cannot commit ex-ante to a sequence of policies for the future. In this setup, if the government is more impatient than the households, the capital income tax will be positive in steady state. Thus, impatience and lack of commitment are able to generate positive capital taxes in the long run, although each of these characteristics individually was not. Furthermore, the steady state to which the economy converges is independent of initial conditions. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.