Migration, dual labour markets and social welfare in a small open economy

Abstract This paper investigates whether the pursuit of redistributional objectives may provide a rationale for origin-based taxation in small open economies. The analysis is developed in a simple two-class economy where consumers are classified according to the type of labour they supply. As world prices are given for a small open economy, the full burden of origin-based commodity taxes falls on the two types of labour. When a non-linear tax is levied on labour income, origin-based taxes cannot directly improve income distribution as the two types of labour face different marginal tax rates. However, the government can exploit the differential incidence of these origin-based taxes and increase social welfare by relaxing the self-selection constraints that bind the non-linear tax. Rather surprisingly, the value judgements embedded in the social welfare functional do not affect the structure of optimal origin-based commodity taxation.The paper also shows that the optimal structure of origin-based commodity taxation does not change when the labour income tax schedule is constrained to be linear, and that a positive source-based tax on capital income may be optimal if it results in a differential burden on the two types of labour.

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Free Education Policy and Trade Liberalization: Consequences on Child and Adult Labour Markets in a Small Open Economy

Journal of Economic Integration ◽

10.11130/jei.2003.18.2.336 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 336-359 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Sarbajit Chaudhuri ◽

Ujjaini Mukhopadhyay

Keyword(s):

Education Policy ◽

Trade Liberalization ◽

Open Economy ◽

Small Open Economy ◽

Labour Markets

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The long-run stability of a small, open economy under crawling peg regime

Acta Oeconomica ◽

10.1556/aoecon.52.2002.1.3 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

pp. 57-78

Author(s):

S. Çiftçioğlu

Keyword(s):

Exchange Rate ◽

Open Economy ◽

Risk Premium ◽

Small Open Economy ◽

Exchange Rate Policy ◽

Price Stability ◽

Output Stability ◽

Long Run ◽

The Exchange Rate ◽

The Impact

The paper analyses the long-run (steady-state) output and price stability of a small, open economy which adopts a “crawling-peg” type of exchange-rate regime in the presence of various kinds of random shocks. Analytical and simulation results suggest that with the exception of money demand shocks, an exchange rate policy which involves a relatively higher rate of indexation of the exchange rate to price level is likely to lead to the worsening of price stability for all types of shocks. On the other hand, the impact of adopting such a policy on output stability depends on the type of the shock; for policy shocks to the exchange rate and shocks to output demand, output stability is worsened whereas for the shocks to risk premium of domestic assets, supply price of domestic output and the wage rate, better output stability is achieved in the long run.

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