Collaborative Research: Entrepreneurship, Friction and the Macroeconomy

合作研究：创业、摩擦和宏观经济

• 批准号: 0317872
• 负责人: Mariacristina De Nardi
• 金额: $ 19.92万
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2007-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0317872&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Entrepreneurship; Friction; Macroeconomy

The effects of taxation on economic inequality and capital accumulation have long been a concern for economists and policy makers. While taxes serve the purpose of redistributing resources from the richest to the poorest, they also have negative effects on household's incentives to work and save and thus reduce economic efficiency. In view of the central importance of this question, it is perhaps surprising that we still do not have analyses of the effects of taxation that incorporate the extreme degree of wealth inequality observed in the data and the key role played by entrepreneurs in shaping such inequality and influencing aggregate investment. The goal of this project is to understand the distribution of income and wealth and how tax policies interact with financial market frictions with particular emphasis on the role of estate taxes, income taxes and capital taxation on entrepreneurial income. This project consists of three parts. First, it seeks to understand how the tightness of borrowing constraints and the receipt of bequests affect entrepreneurial decisions, aggregate capital accumulation and inequality. Less tight borrowing constraints reduce wealth concentration and allow more people to run an entrepreneurial activity. Moreover, the fact that not all of the bequests are accidental, but some are actually voluntary, generates the emergence of some of the large firms and fortunes observed in the data, and increases wealth concentration.Second, the project aims at studying and quantifying the effects of estate and income taxation. Preliminary simulations show that eliminating the estate tax would generate very small increases in capital accumulation and in wealth inequality, while increasing the effective tax rate to very high levels would greatly reduce inequality, but would be very detrimental to capital formation and output. Lower taxes on entrepreneurial income would have a large positive effect on production and capital accumulation (more so than capital income taxes), but would also increase wealth concentration. Third, there is a long tradition in macroeconomics of trying to understand how small shocks, consistent with the order of magnitude of those observed in the data, can generate the type of fluctuations observed over the business cycle. Models with heterogeneity and entrepreneurial choice have the potential to generate the kind of amplification and propagation measured in the data. Aggregate shocks affect entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs differently. Business investment and firm size change over the business cycle and, in presence of borrowing constraints, private wealth and firm size in turn affect entrepreneurial choices.Broader impact: This research project seeks to advance the understanding of the quantitative effect of taxes on capital accumulation and inequality and the role of entrepreneurship over the business cycle. It can thus have an impact on the design of tax policies that are currently being discussed by policy-makers, in particular regarding capital income and estate taxation.

税收对经济不平等和资本积累的影响一直是经济学家和政策制定者关注的问题。虽然税收的目的是将资源从最富有的人重新分配给最贫穷的人，但它们也对家庭工作和储蓄的动机产生负面影响，从而降低经济效率。鉴于这一问题的核心重要性，也许令人惊讶的是，我们仍然没有对税收的影响进行分析，其中包括数据中观察到的极端财富不平等程度以及企业家在形成这种不平等和影响总投资方面发挥的关键作用。 该项目的目标是了解收入和财富的分配以及税收政策如何与金融市场摩擦相互作用，特别强调遗产税，所得税和资本税对企业家收入的作用。 本项目由三部分组成。 首先，它试图了解借款约束的严格程度和接受遗赠如何影响创业决策、总资本积累和不平等。宽松的借贷限制降低了财富集中度，使更多的人能够从事创业活动。此外，并非所有的遗赠都是偶然的，有些实际上是自愿的，这一事实导致了数据中观察到的一些大公司和财富的出现，并增加了财富集中度。第二，该项目旨在研究和量化遗产和所得税的影响。 初步模拟表明，取消遗产税只会使资本积累和财富不平等程度略有增加，而将有效税率提高到非常高的水平将大大减少不平等，但对资本形成和产出非常不利。降低企业所得税将对生产和资本积累产生巨大的积极影响（比资本所得税更大），但也会增加财富集中度。第三，宏观经济学有一个悠久的传统，即试图理解与数据中观察到的数量级一致的小冲击如何能够产生商业周期中观察到的波动类型。具有异质性和企业家选择的模型有可能产生数据中测量的那种放大和传播。总体冲击对企业家和非企业家的影响不同。企业投资和企业规模在经济周期中会发生变化，在存在借贷限制的情况下，私人财富和企业规模反过来会影响企业家的选择。更广泛的影响：本研究项目旨在加深对税收对资本积累和不平等的定量影响以及企业家在经济周期中的作用的理解。 因此，它可以对决策者目前正在讨论的税收政策的设计产生影响，特别是在资本收入和遗产税方面。