Tax systems and tax shares

Arthur Denzau and Robert Mackay

Public Choice, 1985, vol. 45, issue 1, 35-47

Abstract: How can one use the results derived in Sections 3 and 4? The type of use one can make in theoretical voting analysis was suggested in Section 4 already. Comparative statics results on how desired budget levels vary with tax system parameters (such as number of exemptions, size of tax credits, etc.) can be obtained, as well as for varying the tax system used. For empirical work, the application requires some further discussion. Consider a public jurisdiction financing a public good, x, using some tax system. Suppose that individual demand is given by The relevant price needed is the taxprice, which can be found by deriving the associated taxshare system and then using τ(i)p(x) as the taxprice for voter i. The lump-sum component of the taxshare system is subtracted from income to yield the appropriate adjusted income term. This leaves a demand equation of the form: The new taxprice and adjusted income variables can now be measured and used in the empirical analysis. Use of the theoretically correct price and income variables should lead to better estimates of price and income elasticities. More interestingly, one can ask questions about constitutional choices, as suggested by Buchanan (1967: Part II). For example, for a given society, what tax system (and marginal parameters) will imply the largest public sector? Can one make any generalizations about efficient characteristics of the resulting post-constitutional outcomes? Further, how do considerations of excess burden affect such results? 9 Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1985

Date: 1985
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DOI: 10.1007/BF00163586

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