Capital Income Taxation and Economic Growth in Open Economies


Book Description

Do reductions in capital income taxes attract foreign capital and, at the same time, foster economic growth? This paper examines the effect of capital income taxation on the international allocation of capital and on economic growth in a two-country overlapping generations model with endogenous growth and internationally mobile capital. It shows that domestic capital taxes affect both the international allocation of capital and the rate of economic growth and that these two effects are not necessarily the same. A country can increase its share of the existing world capital by changing its taxes but, depending on the elasticity of saving to after-tax returns, this may reduce the rate of capital accumulation and economic growth.




Taxation and Endogenous Growth in Open Economies


Book Description

This paper examines the effects of taxation of human capital, physical capital and foreign assets in a multi-sector model of endogenous growth. It is shown that in general the growth rate is reduced by taxes on capital and labor (human capital) income. When the government faces no borrowing constraints and is able to commit to a given set of present and future taxes, it is shown that the optimal tax plan involves high taxation of both capital and labor in the short run. This allows the government to accumulate sufficient assets to finance spending without any recourse to distortionary taxation in the long run. When restrictions to government borrowing and lending are imposed, the model implies that human and physical capital should be taxed similarly.




Tax Reform in Open Economies


Book Description

This book brings together research from some of the world s leading tax economists to discuss appropriate directions for tax reform in small open economies. The eminent contributors (including Altshuler, Creedy, Freebairn, Gravelle, Heady, Kalb, Sørensen and Zodrow) investigate the beneficial directions for medium-term tax reform in the light of global developments and lessons from the latest taxation research. In addressing this issue, they review recent advances in both the theoretical and empirical tax literature and reform evidence from individual countries. Topics covered include the impact of taxes on economic performance; international and corporate taxation; personal tax and welfare systems; environmental taxation; and country-specific tax reform experiences. Bringing together leading international experts to explore specific policy reforms, this book will prove essential reading for academics and researchers of public economics, fiscal policy and tax reform. It will also be warmly welcomed both by undergraduate and graduate students of public economics or the economics of taxation, as well as policymakers and government officials working in the area of tax policy.







Capital Income Taxation and Long Run Growth


Book Description

We study the effects of capital income taxation on long run growth in an endogenous growth framework with two distinguishing features: endogenous population and international capital mobility. Endogenizing population growth introduces a new channel for taxes to affect economic growth and enables us to discriminate the effects of taxes on total versus per capita income growth. Allowing for capital mobility in the open economy, we show how the effects of taxes on population growth and income growth across countries will vary in specific ways, depending on the international income tax regimes and the relative preference bias of people towards the 'quantity' and 'quality' of children. The numerical results based on our calibrated model for the G-7 also indicate that, although the effects of liberalizing capital flows on long run growth may not be very sizable, the growth effects of changes in capital income tax rates can be tremendously magnified by cross-border capital flows and cross-border spillovers of policy effects.




Vanishing Tax on Capital Income in the Open Economy


Book Description

The increased integration of the world capital market implies that the supply of capital becomes more elastic, and therefore potentially a less efficient base for taxation. In general, the optimal taxation of capital income is subject to two conflicting forces. On the one hand the return on existing capital is a pure rent which is efficient to fully tax away. On the other hand taxing the returns on investment in new capital would retard growth, thus generating inefficiencies. Capturing these considerations, the paper carries out a simple optimal tax analysis for an open economy, which is fully integrated in the world capital markets. The analysis identifies well defined circumstances in which the capital income tax vanishes.




Growth in Open Economies


Book Description




Economic Growth and Environmental Policy


Book Description

This book should interest all students and scholars of environmental economics and particularly those interested in the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality.







Tax Policy Implications in Endogenous Growth Models


Book Description

This paper surveys the tax policy implications in various endogenous growth models. The focus is on the long-run growth effects of income, consumption, and investment taxation in models whose engine of growth is the accumulation of human capital, technological innovation, and/or public infrastructure. The results depend on model specifications. This paper also reviews quantitative results from cross-country regressions and simulations, and indicates some statistical and methodological problems to which they are subject. Tax policy implications in endogenous growth models both with tax policy endogenously determined by a political process and with international capital mobility are also discussed.