Measuring economic efficiency using inverse-optimum weights
Measuring economic efficiency using inverse-optimum weights
复制标题
使用逆最优权重衡量经济效率
DOI：
10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104198
复制
发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Hendren, Nathaniel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hendren, Nathaniel
本文提供了一种在税收影响行为时衡量传统卡尔多-希克斯“经济效率”概念的方法。与传统的未加权盈余相比，衡量效率需要通过政府在每个收入水平提供 1 美元转移支付的边际成本来衡量个人收益（或盈余）。这些权重对应于最优税收文献中“逆最优”计划的解决方案：它们是将现状税收计划合理化为最优的社会规划权重。我使用 2012 年美国所得税申报表的总体数据来估计权重。结果表明，衡量经济效率需要对穷人产生的盈余进行加权，其权重大约是富人产生的盈余的 1.5 至 2 倍。这是因为通过降低税表的累进性，穷人的 1 美元盈余可以转化为富人的大约 1.5-2 美元盈余。根据卡尔多和希克斯的原始申请，我比较了美国和各国随时间的收入分配。结果表明，由于不平等加剧，美国经济增长比 GDP 变化所显示的低 15-20%。由于不平等程度较高，美国尽管人均国民收入较高，但无法复制奥地利和荷兰等国家的收入分配。
This paper provides a method to measure the traditional Kaldor-Hicks notion of “economic efficiency” when taxes affect behavior. In contrast to traditional unweighted surplus, measuring efficiency requires weighting individual benefits (or surplus) by the marginal cost to the government of providing a $1 transfer at each income level. These weights correspond to the solution to the “inverse-optimum” program in the optimal tax literature: they are the social planning weights that would rationalize the status quo tax schedule as optimal. I estimate the weights using the universe of US income tax returns from 2012. The results suggest that measuring economic efficiency requires weighting surplus accruing to the poor roughly 1.5–2 times more than surplus accruing to the rich. This is because $1 of surplus to the poor can be turned into roughly $1.5–$2 of surplus to the rich by reducing the progressivity of the tax schedule. Following Kaldor and Hicks' original applications, I compare income distributions over time in the US and across countries. The results suggest US economic growth is 15–20% lower due to increased inequality than is suggested by changes in GDP. Because of its higher inequality, the U.S. is unable to replicate the income distribution of countries like Austria and the Netherlands, despite having higher national income per capita.