Comparing the Marginal Excess Burden of Labor, Petrol, Cigarette, and Alcohol Taxes: An Application to the United Kingdom
Comparing the Marginal Excess Burden of Labor, Petrol, Cigarette, and Alcohol Taxes: An Application to the United Kingdom
复制标题
比较劳动力税、汽油税、香烟税和酒精税的边际超额负担：在英国的应用
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2001
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
I. Parry
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
I. Parry
本文提出了一个估算劳动、汽油、香烟和酒类税收的边际超额负担(MEB)的分析框架，考虑了不同税收之间的外部性和相互作用。这些公式是使用英国可信的参数值进行估算的。考虑到各种弹性和外部损害的不确定性，我们为MEB获得了广泛的可能结果。然而，通过进行蒙特卡罗模拟，我们可以评估一种税收的MEB超过其他税收的可能性。我们发现，劳动力税的MEB介于0.18-0.34之间，80%的可能性是用于为转移支出融资的增税。汽油税的MEB要大得多：在我们的模拟中，75%的情况下是劳动税的两倍多，51%的情况下是劳动税的三倍多。类似的结果也适用于卷烟税。尽管这些商品是相对较弱的休闲替代品，但大宗商品市场的巨额福利增量损失足以抵消这一点，因为在我们的大多数情景中，大宗商品税率远远高于估计的边际外部损害。相比之下，我们对酒精税的MEB的核心估计类似于对劳动税的估计，因为酒精税更接近我们对边际外部成本的假设价值。但MEB仍然是积极的，即使在酒精税低于边际外部损害的情况下，由于税收对加剧劳动力市场扭曲的影响。当额外的政府支出用于公共产品而不是转移支付时，MEB的劳动税明显较低，但大宗商品税较少。在英国的情况下，我们的结果表明，通过税收改革将部分税收负担从汽油和香烟转移到劳动力身上，可能会带来显著的社会福利收益。这一方法可以很容易地推广并适用于其他国家的税收制度。
This paper develops an analytical framework for estimating the marginal excess burden (MEB) of taxes on labor, gasoline, cigarettes and alcohol, allowing for externalities and interactions between the different taxes. The formulas are estimated using plausible parameter values for the United Kingdom. Given the uncertainty over various elasticities and external damages, we obtain wide ranges of possible outcomes for the MEBs. By performing Monte Carlo simulations, however, we can assess the likelihood that the MEB of one tax exceeds that of other taxes. We find that the MEB of labor taxes lies between 0.18 and 0.34 with 80% probability for tax increases used to finance transfer spending. The MEB for the gasoline tax is much larger: it is more than double that of the labor tax in 75% of our simulations and more than treble in 51%. Similar results apply for the cigarette tax. Even though these goods are relatively weak leisure substitutes, this is more than offset by large incremental welfare losses in the commodity markets, because the commodity tax rates are substantially higher than estimated marginal external damages in most of our scenarios. In contrast, our central estimate for the MEB of alcohol taxes is similar to that for labor taxes, because the alcohol tax is much closer to our assumed values for marginal external costs. But the MEB is still positive, even in scenarios when the alcohol tax is below marginal external damages, due to the impact of the tax on exacerbating the labor market distortion. When additional government spending is on public goods rather than transfers, the MEB is significantly lower for the labor tax but less so for commodity taxes. In the United Kingdom context, our results suggest the possibility of significant social welfare gains from tax reforms that shift some of the burden of taxation off gasoline and cigarettes and onto labor. The methodology could be readily extended and applied to tax systems in other countries.