The Distributional Consequences of Tax Reforms under Market Distortions
CESifo, Munich, 2011
CESifo Working Paper No. 3600
In this paper we examine the importance of imperfect competition in product and labour markets in determining the long-run welfare effects of tax reforms assuming agent heterogeneity in capital holdings. Each of these market failures, independently, results in welfare losses for at least a segment of the population, after a capital tax cut and a concurrent labour tax increase. However, when combined in a realistic calibration to the UK economy, they imply that a capital tax cut will be Pareto improving in the long run. Consistent with the theory of second-best, the two distortions in this context work to correct the negative distributional effects of a capital tax cut that each one, on its own, creates.
Fiscal Policy, Macroeconomics and Growth