The evolution of the shares of productive spending and distortionary taxation

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 1294-1308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Acocella ◽  
Giovanni Di Bartolomeo ◽  
Patrizio Tirelli

This paper offers a reinterpretation of the Fed's time-varying implicit inflation target, based on two considerations. The first is that the need to alleviate the burden of distortionary taxation may justify the choice of a positive inflation rate. The second is based on compelling evidence that the degree of price and wage indexation falls with trend inflation. In fact, we find that a proper characterization of the joint evolution of fiscal variables and nominal rigidities has a strong impact on the Ramsey optimal policies, implying optimal inflation dynamics that are consistent with the observed evolution of U.S. trend inflation. By contrast, tax policies have been too lax, especially at the time of the controversial Bush tax cuts.


2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Edwards

Abstract The paper shows that, if two conditions are satisfied, both radial contraction and concertina trade tax reforms continue to be desirable in a small open economy that differs from the one usually considered by having distributional objectives and using distortionary taxes to raise revenue. The first condition is that some optimisation in the choice of commodity taxes takes place - at a minimum, taxes on nontraded goods must be optimally chosen while taxes on traded goods keep the consumer prices of such goods constant. The second is that pure profits are absent from every household's budget constraint. These conditions mean that some care is required in arguing the case for simple trade tax reforms in small open economies.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pertti Haaparanta ◽  
Ravi Kanbur ◽  
Tuuli Paukkeri ◽  
Jukka Pirttilä ◽  
Matti Tuomala

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leopold von Thadden ◽  
Andreas Schabert

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