Mixed Tax Systems and the Public Provision of Private Goods

Alessandro Balestrino

International Tax and Public Finance, 2000, vol. 7, issue 4, 463-478

Abstract: In contrast to what used to be conventional wisdom among economists,several recent contributions have shown that in-kind transfersschemes can be welfare-improving in the presence of distortionarytaxes (usually, linear taxes or a general income tax). In thisnote, we extend previous work by considering the most generaltax system compatible with reasonable information constraints,i.e. a mix of linear indirect and non-linear direct taxes. Threemain results are noted. We find that in the presence of a mixedtax system (as opposed to the non-linear income tax alone): i) not only encouraged but also discouraged goods satisfy a conditionfor the desirability of public provision; ii) there is a tendencyfor the optimal level of in-kind transfers to be lower; iii)there is a basic equivalence between uniform and income-contingentin-kind transfers. We also show how previous results can be derivedas special cases of ours and others have to be modified to accountfor the mixed tax system. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000

Keywords: public provision of private goods; distortionary taxes; mixed tax systems; in-kind transfers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1023/A:1008729304743

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