| 1. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Charity as income redistribution : a model with optimal taxation, status, and social stigma
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In light of the increasing inequality in many countries, this paper analyzes redistributive charitable giving from the rich to the poor in a model of optimal nonlinear income taxation. Our framework integrates (i) public and private redistribution, (ii) the warm glow of giving and stigma of receiving charitable donations, and (iii) status concerns emanating from social comparisons with respect to charitable donations and private consumption. Whether charity should be taxed or supported largely depends on the relative strengths of the warm glow of giving and the stigma of receiving charity, respectively, and on the positional externalities caused by charitable donations. In addition, imposing stigma on the mimicker (which relaxes the self-selection constraint) strengthens the case for subsidizing charity. We also consider a case where the government is unable to target the charitable giving through a direct tax instrument, and we examine how the optimal marginal income tax structure should be adjusted in response to charitable giving. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the quantitative effects of the aforementioned mechanisms can be substantial.
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| 2. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Charity, status, and optimal taxation : welfarist and paternalist approaches
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper deals with tax policy responses to charitable giving, defined in terms of voluntary contributions to a public good, to which the government also contributes through public revenue; the set of tax instruments contains general, nonlinear taxes on income and charitable giving. In addition to consumption, leisure and a public good, individuals obtain utility from the warm glow of giving and social status generated by their relative contributions to charity as well as their relative consumption compared with others. We analyze the conditions under which it is optimal to tax or subsidize charitable giving and derive corresponding optimal policy rules. Another aim of the paper is to compare the optimal tax policy and public good provision by a conventional welfarist government with those by two kinds of paternalist governments: The first kind does not respect the consumer preferences for status in terms of relative giving and relative consumption, while the second kind in addition does not respect preferences for warm glow of giving. The optimal policy rules for marginal taxation and public good provision are similar across governments, except for the stronger incentive to tax charitable giving at the margin under the more extensive kind of paternalism. Numerical simulations supplement the theoretical results.
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| 3. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Charity, Status, and Optimal Taxation: Welfarist and Non-Welfarist Approaches
- 2021
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper analyzes optimal taxation of charitable giving to a public good in a Mirrleesian framework with social comparisons. Leisure separability together with zero transaction costs of giving imply that charitable giving should be subsidized to such an extent that governmental contributions are completely crowded out, regardless of whether the government acknowledges warm glows of giving. Stronger concerns for relative charitable giving and larger transaction costs support lower marginal subsidies, whereas relative consumption concerns work in the other direction. A dual screening approach, where charitable giving constitutes an indicator of wealth, is also presents. Numerical simulations supplement the theoretical results.
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| 4. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Inequality Aversion, Externalities, and Pareto-Efficient Income Taxation
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper analyzes Pareto-efficient marginal income taxation taking into account externalities induced through individual inequality aversion, meaning that people have preferences for equality. In doing so, we distinguish between four different and widely used models of inequality aversion. The results show that empirically and experimentally quantified degrees of inequality aversion have potentially very strong implications for Pareto-efficient marginal income taxation. It also turns out that the type of inequality aversion (self-centered vs. non-self-centered), and the specific measures of inequality used, matter a great deal. For example, based on simulation results mimicking the disposable income distribution in the U.S., the preferences suggested by Fehr and Schmidt (1999) imply monotonically increasing marginal income taxes, with large negative marginal tax rates for low-income individuals and large positive marginal tax rates for high-income ones. In contrast, the in many respects comparable model by Bolton and Ockenfels (2000) implies close to zero marginal income tax rates for all.
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| 5. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Redistribution through Charity and Optimal Taxation when People are Concerned with Social Status
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper deals with tax policy responses to charitable giving based on a model of optimal redistributive income taxation. The major contribution is the simultaneous treatment of (i) warm-glow and stigma effects of charitable donations; (ii) that the warm glow of giving and stigma of receiving charity may to some extent depend on relative comparisons; and (iii) that people are also concerned with their relative consumption more generally. Whether charity should be taxed or supported turns out to largely depend on the relative strengths of the warm glow of giving and the stigma of receiving charity, respectively, and on the positional externalities caused by charitable donations. In addition, imposing stigma on the mimicker (via a relaxation of the self-selection constraint) strengthens the case for subsidizing charity. We also consider a case where the government is unable to target the charitable giving through a direct tax instrument, and examine how the optimal marginal income tax structure is adjusted in response to charitable giving.
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| 6. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Social Comparisons and Optimal Taxation in a Small Open Economy
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Almost all previous studies on optimal taxation and status consumption are based on closed model-economies. This paper analyzes how international capital mobility – which may constrain the use of capital income taxation – affects the optimal redistributive income tax policy in a small open economy when consumers care about their relative consumption. If the government can perfectly observe (and tax) returns on savings abroad, it is shown that the policy rules for marginal labor and capital income taxation derived for a closed economy largely carry over to the small open economy analyzed here. However, if these returns are unobserved by the government, the marginal tax policy rules will be very different from those pertaining to closed model-economies. In this case, capital income taxes on domestic savings will be completely ineffective, since such taxes would induce the consumers to move their savings abroad. The labor income tax must then indirectly also reflect the corrective purpose that the absent capital income tax would otherwise have had.
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| 7. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Veblen’s theory of the leisure class revisited : Implications for optimal income taxation
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Almost all previous studies on public policy under relative consumption concerns have ignored the role of leisure for status comparisons. Inspired by Veblen (1899), this paper considers a two-type optimal income tax model, where people care about their relative consumption, and where the importance of relative consumption increases with the use of leisure due to increased consumption visibility. We show that increased consumption positionality typically implies higher marginal income tax rates for both ability-types. Using a leisure-weighted measure of reference consumption, rather than a measure where leisure plays no role as in the previous literature, increases the marginal income tax rate implemented for the low-ability type and decreases the marginal income tax rate implemented for the high-ability type, i.e., it gives rise to a regressive tax component.
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| 8. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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When Samuelson met Veblen abroad : National and global public goods when social comparisons matter
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper derives Pareto efficient policy rules for the provision of national as well as global public goods in a two-country world, where each individual cares about relative consumption within as well as between countries. Furthermore, we compare these policy rules with those that follow from a non-cooperative Nash equilibrium. The results show that both global and national public goods are systematically under-provided in Nash equilibrium under such relative consumption concerns.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Aronsson, Thomas, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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A Note on Optimal Taxation, Status Consumption, and Unemployment
- 2020
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Existing research on optimal taxation in economies with status-driven relative consumption assumes that the labor market is competitive, despite the fact that real world labor markets are typically characterized by involuntary unemployment. We show how the marginal tax policy ought to be modified to simultaneously account for positional consumption externalities and equilibrium unemployment, and find that interaction effects between these two market failures are crucial determinants of the marginal tax structure. In certain cases, the policy incentive to tax away positional externalities vanishes completely, and negative positional externalities may even lead to lower marginal taxation, under involuntary unemployment.
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