Rents And the Cost and Optimal Design of Commodity Taxes
利用1986年加拿大数据校准的一般均衡模型，数值研究了不同类型租金（李嘉图租金、不完全竞争租金、管制租金）对商品税福利成本和最优设计的影响，发现最优税率结构显著非均匀，且租金处理方式对税率模式有重要影响。
This paper numerically investigates the significance of rents for both the welfare costs and the optimal design of commodity taxes using a general-equilibrium model calibrated to 1986 Canadian data. In the data we use, Ricardian rents are concentrated in agriculture and utilities, with market structure rents concentrated in manufacturing. Different types of rents have different implications for the welfare cost of taxes, and hence also for appropriate tax design. Ricardian rents lower the cost of taxes; rents supported by imperfect competition (with no free entry) raise the cost of taxes; rents supported by regulation generate rent-seeking costs, and if taxed improve resource allocation. Model results show a markedly nonuniform optimal tax structure, and a substantial influence of the treatment of rents on the pattern of optimal tax rates by commodity. © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology