|
on Public Finance |
|
Issue of 2013‒04‒06
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Garth Heutel; David L. Kelly |
| Abstract: | Government policies that are not intended to address environmental concerns can nonetheless distort prices and affect firms' emissions. We present an analytical general equilibrium model to study the effect of distortionary subsidies on factor prices and on environmental outcomes. We model an output subsidy, a capital subsidy, relief from environmental regulation, and a direct cash subsidy. In exchange for receiving subsidies, firms must agree to a minimum level of labor employment. Each type of subsidy and the employment constraint create both output effects and substitution effects on input prices and emissions. We calibrate the model to the Chinese economy, where government involvement affects emissions from both state-owned enterprises and private firms. Variation in production substitution elasticities does not substantially affect input prices, but it does substantially affect emissions. |
| JEL: | H23 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18924&r=pub |
| By: | Elsayyad, May; Konrad, Kai A. |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a competition theory framework that evaluates an important aspect of the OECD’s Harmful Tax Practices Initiative against tax havens. We show that the sequential nature of the process is harmful and more costly than a “big bang” multilateral agreement. The sequentiality may even prevent the process from being completed successfully. Closing down a subset of tax havens reduces competition among the havens that remain active. This makes their “tax haven business” more profitable and shifts a larger share of rents to these remaining tax havens, making them more reluctant to give up their “tax haven business”. Moreover, the outcome of this process, reducing the number of tax havens, but not eliminating them altogether, may reduce welfare in the OECD. |
| Keywords: | tax haven; harmful tax practices; bidding for haven inactivation |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:muenar:13964&r=pub |
| By: | Tuan-Hwee Sng; Chiaki Moriguchi |
| Abstract: | We develop a principal-agent model to study fiscal capacity in pre-modern China and Japan. Before 1850, both nations were ruled by stable dictators who relied on bureaucrats to govern their domains. We hypothesize that agency problems increase with the geographic size of a domain. In a large domain, the ruler's inability to closely monitor bureaucrats creates opportunities for the bureaucrats to exploit taxpayers. To prevent overexploitation, the ruler has to keep taxes low and government small. Our dynamic model shows that while economic expansion improves the ruler's finances in a small domain, it could lead to lower tax revenues in a large domain as it exacerbates bureaucratic expropriation. To test these implications, we assemble comparable quantitative data from primary and secondary sources. We find that the state taxed less and provided fewer local public goods per capita in China than in Japan. Furthermore, while the Tokugawa shogunate's tax revenue grew in tandem with demographic trends, Qing China underwent fiscal contraction after 1750 despite demographic expansion. We conjecture that a greater state capacity might have prepared Japan better for the arrival of the West after 1850. |
| Keywords: | Comparative Institutional Analysis, Principal-Agent Problem, Dictatorships |
| JEL: | D73 N15 N40 O43 P52 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd12-284&r=pub |