On the political economy of nonlinear income taxation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Berliant, Marcus; Gouveia, Miguel
• 署名单位: Washington University (WUSTL); Universidade Catolica Portuguesa
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2026.08.002
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: public-goods; RATIONAL THEORY; majority-rule; taxes; Allocations; EFFICIENCY; provision; continuum; POWER; size

摘要

The political economy setting of voting over general nonlinear income taxes with labor disincentives and information asymmetry in consumer/worker/voter types is considered. Agents do not communicate or coordinate with each other. The economy is the realization of a finite draw from a continuous distribution. The revenue required from a draw is determined by Pareto optimal provision of a public good for that draw. Assuming that the government must meet the revenue requirement for any possible draw, in other words the tax is robust, a majority rule equilibrium is shown to exist at the median voter's preferred tax function out of this robust set. The key restrictions on utility are additive separability, quasi-linearity, and that utility from the public good is multiplicative in type.