Optimal Fiscal Policy with Consumption Taxation
在垄断竞争和内生公共支出的一般均衡模型中，研究了消费税作为劳动所得税替代方案的最优财政政策，发现消费税能更高效管理公债负担，并导致最优政府支出份额更高。
Abstract We characterize optimal fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and endogenous public spending. The government can tax consumption, as alternative to labor income taxes. Consumption taxation acts as indirect taxation of profits ( intratemporal gains of taxing consumption ) and enables the policymaker to manage the burden of public debt more efficiently ( intertemporal gains of taxing consumption ). We show analytically that these two gains imply that the optimal share of government spending is higher under consumption taxation than with labor income taxation. Then, we quantify numerically each of these gains by calibrating the model on the U.S. economy.