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The Incidence of a Corporation Income Tax in a Growing Economy

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(5), 863-875
Using a two-sector growth model, this paper examines the incidence of a corporation income tax. While the two-sector static model has provided a fairly precise conclusion as to the incidence of that tax, no such clear conclusion emerges from the growth model. This is because the results are quite sensitive to the precise value of the elasticity of savings with respect to the interest rate. However, one point is clear: Because a tax increase raises the price of investment goods, if savings rates are constant, capitalists must bear a smaller burden than that predicted by the static model.

The Incidence of a Corporation Income Tax in a Growing Economy

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(5), 863-875
Using a two-sector growth model, this paper examines the incidence of a corporation income tax. While the two-sector static model has provided a fairly precise conclusion as to the incidence of that tax, no such clear conclusion emerges from the growth model. This is because the results are quite sensitive to the precise value of the elasticity of savings with respect to the interest rate. However, one point is clear: Because a tax increase raises the price of investment goods, if savings rates are constant, capitalists must bear a smaller burden than that predicted by the static model.

Taxation, Saving, and the Rate of Interest

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(2), S3-S27
[This study presents new estimates of consumption functions based on aggregate U.S. time-series data. The results are striking: a variety of functional forms, estimation methods, and definitions of the real after-tax rate of return invariably lead to the conclusion of a substantial interest elasticity of saving. The implications of this result for the analysis of the efficiency and equity of the current U.S. tax treatment of income from capital are explored. In reducing the real net rate of return, current tax treatment significantly retards capital accumulation. This in turn causes an enormous waste of resources and redistributes a substantial fraction of gross income from labor to capital. Rough estimates of the loss welfare exceed 50 billion per year (a present value close to 1 trillion!) and of the redistribution from labor to capital exceed one-seventh of the capital's share of gross Income.It also suggests that the usual calculations of tax burdens by income class substantially overestimate both the progressivity of the income tax and the alleged regressivity of consumption taxes.]

Rational Expectations, Econometric Exogeneity, and Consumption

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(4), 673-700
Estimates of a rational expectations version of Friedman's time-series consumption model are obtained by imposing the pertinent restrictions across the stochastic processes for consumption and income. A likelihood ratio test is used to test the adequacy of three joint hypotheses: namely, Friedman's model, rational expectations, and some arbitrary conditions on the disturbance process in the consumption function. The paper treats both the cases in which income is econometrically exogenous with respect to consumption and those in which it is not. The macroeconomics of this exogeneity condition are briefly discussed.

Unanticipated Money, Output, and the Price Level in the United States

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(4), 549-580
Earlier analysis of unanticipated money growth is extended to output (GNP) and the price level (GNP deflator) for recent U.S. experience. Price level determination is more complicated than output determination, because both anticipated and unanticipated money movements are involved. Empirical results accord well with the model--notably, they support the key hypothesis of a one-to-one, contemporaneous link between anticipated money and the price level. Precise estimates are obtained for the lagged responses of output and prices to unanticipated money movements. Cross-equation comparisons indicate that the price response to unanticipated money movements has a longer lag than the output response. A form of lagged adjustment in money demand can account for this difference. The forecasts for inflation average 5.5 percent per year for 1977-80.

Estimation of Dynamic Labor Demand Schedules under Rational Expectations

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(6), 1009-1044
A dynamic linear demand schedule for labor is estimated and tested. The hypothesis of rational expectations and assumptions about the orders of the Markov processes governing technology impose overidentifying restrictions on a vector autoregression for straight-time employment, overtime employment, and the real wage. The model is estimated by the full-information maximum-likelihood method. The model is used as a vehicle for reexamining some of the paradoxical cyclical behavior of real wages described in the famous Dunlop-Tarshis-Keynes exchange.

Taxation, Saving, and the Rate of Interest

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(2, Part 2), S3-S27 open access
This study presents new estimates of consumption functions based on aggregate U.S. time-series data. The results are striking: a variety of functional forms, estimation methods, and definitions of the real after-tax rate of return invariably lead to the conclusion of a substantial interest elasticity of saving. The implications of this result for the analysis of the efficiency and equity of the current U.S. tax treatment of income from capital are explored. In reducing the real net rate of return, current tax treatment significantly retards capital accumulation. This in turn causes an enormous waste of resources and redistributes a substantial fraction of gross income from labor to capital. Rough estimates of the loss welfare exceed 50 billion per year (a present value close to 1 trillion!) and of the redistribution from labor to capital exceed one-seventh of the capital's share of gross Income.It also suggests that the usual calculations of tax burdens by income class substantially overestimate both the progressivity of the income tax and the alleged regressivity of consumption taxes.

An Econometric Model of Pronatalist and Abortion Policies

Journal of Political Economy 1978 86(6), 1077-1101
The relationship between population policy instruments and fertility levels in Hungary is analyzed with a simultaneous equation model. Both birth and abortion relationships are placed in a supply and demand perspective, permitting a distinction between desired and actual levels of births and abortions. Pronatalist and abortion policies are evaluated through the reduced forms of the structural equations. Effects of average earnings, income, value of time spent at home, and speed of adjustment to policy changes are also considered. The analytical method is thought to permit appraisal of the effects of population policy in both developed and developing countries