Taxation of Consumption and Labor Income: A Quantitative Approach
在一个考虑耐用品不可逆性和偏好异质性的生命周期模型中，定量刻画最优消费税和劳动所得税，发现耐用品应补贴、非耐用品应统一税率，并解释了现实税收实践。
I quantitatively characterize optimal consumption and labor income taxes in a structural life-cycle model of household consumption, saving, and employment choices that allows for irreversibility of durable goods and preference heterogeneity. I find that durables should be subsidized and nondurables should be taxed at a uniform rate. The durable subsidy is driven by the life-cycle features of the model together with durables’ irreversibility and borrowing constraints. Uniform taxation on nondurables holds under exogenous and endogenous—fully or weakly separable—labor supply and it relies on homogeneity of intertemporal preferences. Allowing for government’s equity concerns, I show that the model rationalizes the tax practice.