Political competition and Mirrleesian income taxation: A first pass

Felix J. Bierbrauer and Pierre Boyer

Journal of Public Economics, 2013, vol. 103, issue C, 1-14

Abstract: We study political competition in a simple Mirrleesian model of income taxation. The analysis is made tractable by exploiting the mechanism design formulation of the Mirrleesian problem. We consider basic variants of the Downsian model such as vote-share maximizing politicians, a winner-take-all system, and competition among politicians who differ in a quality dimension. We focus on the welfare implications of political competition and its implications for tax rates. In particular, we clarify the conditions under which equilibrium tax policies are Pareto-efficient and the conditions under which political failures in the sense of Besley and Coate (1998) arise.

Keywords: Political competition; Redistributive politics; Non-linear income taxation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D72 H21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Political competition and Mirrleesian income taxation: A first pass (2011)
Working Paper: Political Competition and Mirrleesian Income Taxation: A First Pass (2010)
Working Paper: Political competition and Mirrleesian income taxation: A first pass (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:103:y:2013:i:c:p:1-14

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2013.03.007

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