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on Public Finance |
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Issue of 2008‒10‒28
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Alexander W. Blocker; Laurence J. Kotlikoff; Stephen A. Ross |
| Abstract: | Implicit government obligations represent the lion's share of government liabilities in the U.S. and many other countries. Yet these liabilities are rarely measured, let alone properly adjusted for their risk. This paper shows, by example, how modern asset pricing can be used to value implicit fiscal debts taking into account their risk properties. The example is the U.S. Social Security System's net liability to working-age Americans. Marking this debt to market makes a big difference; its market value is 23 percent larger than the Social Security trustees' valuation method suggests. |
| JEL: | G12 G13 G23 G38 H2 H55 H6 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14427&r=pub |
| By: | Peter Egger; Christian Keuschnigg; Hannes Winner |
| Abstract: | This paper provides theory and firm-level evidence on the incorporation decision of entrepreneurs in a model of corporate governance and taxation. The theory explains how the incorporation decision of entrepreneurs is driven by taxation (corporate and personal income taxes), corporate transparency, access to external capital and limited liability. We estimate features of this model using a large cross-section of more than 540, 000 firms in European manufacturing. The impact of taxation on the incorporation decision is at the heart of this analysis. We find that higher personal income tax rates and their progression are associated with an increase in the probability of incorporation, while higher corporate tax rates entail an impediment to incorporate. This finding is robust to the inclusion of other economic and institutional determinants and to a variety of functional form assumptions about the latent variable in the estimated discrete choice model. |
| Keywords: | Incorporation, governance, taxes, discrete choice models |
| JEL: | H25 H73 F23 C21 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:dp2008:2008-20&r=pub |
| By: | Joanna Piotrowska (Ministry of Finance, Poland); Werner Vanborren (European Commission) |
| Abstract: | In Europe, the decline in the corporate tax rates has not been reflected in the tax-to-GDP ratios. This paper explores to what extent the observed trend can be explained by changes in the effective tax burden on corporate income, in the share of total income accruing to the corporate sector and in total business income relative to GDP. We present an overview of the findings from previous literature, apply the methodology developed by S?rensen to decompose the most complete data available on the European level and make use of information collected from parallel studies on the effective tax burden and corporatization. The results suggest that corporatization is the driving factor for the trend observed in corporate tax revenues. |
| Keywords: | corporate taxation, tax revenues, incorporation, corporatization |
| JEL: | H25 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tax:taxpap:0012&r=pub |
| By: | Nadja Dwenger; Viktor Steiner |
| Abstract: | We estimate the elasticity of corporate taxable income with respect to the effective corporate tax rate on the basis of a pseudo-panel constructed from corporate tax return micro data for the period 1998-2001, a period which saw the introduction of a major corporate tax reform in Germany. Endogeneity of the effective tax rate is controlled for by an instrumental variable approach. Our instrument for the observed effective corporate tax rate is the counterfactual effective tax rate a corporation would face in a particular period had there be no endogenous change of corporate profits. This counterfactual is obtained from a detailed microsimulation model of the corporate sector based on tax return micro data. We find a statistically significant and relatively large point estimate of the average tax base elasticity, which implies that a reduction of the statutory corporate tax rate would reduce corporate tax receipts less than proportionally due to income shifting activities. We also find some statistically weak evidence for the hypothesis that the tax base elasticity is higher for corporations that may benefit from various forms of tax shields. |
| Keywords: | corporate income taxation; tax base elasticity; micro simulation |
| JEL: | H32 H21 F23 C15 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp829&r=pub |
| By: | Hans Fehr; Christian Habermann |
| Abstract: | The present paper studies the growth, welfare and efficiency consequences of the recent introduction of tax-favored retirement accounts in Germany in a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic lifespan and labor income uncertainty. We focus on the implicit differential taxation of specific savings motives, the mandatory annuitization of benefits and the impact of special provisions for low-income households. The simulations indicate that the reform improves overall economic efficiency by about 0.6 percent of aggregate resources, but welfare decreases significantly for future generations. Finally, we show that special provisions could be very effective in raising the participation of low-income households despite their low budgetary cost. |
| Keywords: | Individual retirement accounts, annuities, stochastic general equilibrium |
| JEL: | H55 J26 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp133&r=pub |