Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach

Etienne Lehmann (), Kavan Kucko and Johannes Schmieder
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Kory Kroft

No 12328, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We derive a sufficient statistics optimal income tax formula in a general model that incorporâtes unemployment and endogenous wages, to study the shape of the tax and transfer system at the bottom of the income distribution. Key sufficient statistics are the macro employment response to taxation, the micro and macro participation response to taxation and the wage-moderating effect of tax progressivity. We empirically implement the tax formula by estimating the micro and macro elasticities using policy variation from the U.S. tax and transfer system. Our results suggest that the optimal tax more closely resembles a Negative Income Tax than an Earned Income Tax Credit relative to the case where unemployment and wage responses are not taken into account.

Date: 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12328 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2020)
Working Paper: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2020)
Working Paper: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2017)
Working Paper: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2016)
Working Paper: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2015)
Working Paper: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2015)
Working Paper: Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12328

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12328

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().