Optimal Taxes Without Commitment

Jess Benhabib and Aldo Rustichini

Working Papers from C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University

Abstract: In the problem of optimal taxation in an economy with two productive factors, labor and capital, the optimal solution when the government can commit to a sequence of tax rates, has the tax on capital tending to zero in the limit, with all the tax burden on labour. It is well known, however, that this solution is time inconsistent; so if the commitment power is not perfect, this second best tax plan will not be suitable. We model explicitly the tradeoff between the cost of revising the tax plan, and the benefit of the revision.

Keywords: FISCAL POLICY; CAPITAL; TAXES; TAXATION (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 H20 H21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Optimal Taxes without Commitment (1997)
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:cvs:starer:96-18

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
C.V. Starr Center, Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University C.V. Starr Center, Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anne Stubing ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).