{"title":"Optimal labor income taxation: the role of the skill distribution","authors":"Dingquan Miao","doi":"10.1007/s00355-024-01540-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>I analyze the role of the distribution of skills in shaping optimal nonlinear income tax schedules. I use theoretical skill distributions as well as empirical skill distributions for 14 OECD countries. I find that a more dispersed log-normal skill distribution implies a more progressive optimal tax schedule. Optimal marginal tax rates should be lower throughout if a greater number of unskilled agents cluster at the bottom, and the scheme is more progressive if a greater number of agents locate at the top. I also highlight how the impact of the skill distribution is affected by the form of the social welfare function and the utility function. The findings using empirical skill distributions suggest that the results are sensitive to the type of statistical estimator used to estimate the skill distribution.</p>","PeriodicalId":47663,"journal":{"name":"Social Choice and Welfare","volume":"94 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Choice and Welfare","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-024-01540-3","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
I analyze the role of the distribution of skills in shaping optimal nonlinear income tax schedules. I use theoretical skill distributions as well as empirical skill distributions for 14 OECD countries. I find that a more dispersed log-normal skill distribution implies a more progressive optimal tax schedule. Optimal marginal tax rates should be lower throughout if a greater number of unskilled agents cluster at the bottom, and the scheme is more progressive if a greater number of agents locate at the top. I also highlight how the impact of the skill distribution is affected by the form of the social welfare function and the utility function. The findings using empirical skill distributions suggest that the results are sensitive to the type of statistical estimator used to estimate the skill distribution.
期刊介绍：
Social Choice and Welfare explores all aspects, both normative and positive, of welfare economics, collective choice, and strategic interaction. Topics include but are not limited to: preference aggregation, welfare criteria, fairness, justice and equity, rights, inequality and poverty measurement, voting and elections, political games, coalition formation, public goods, mechanism design, networks, matching, optimal taxation, cost-benefit analysis, computational social choice, judgement aggregation, market design, behavioral welfare economics, subjective well-being studies and experimental investigations related to social choice and voting. As such, the journal is inter-disciplinary and cuts across the boundaries of economics, political science, philosophy, and mathematics. Articles on choice and order theory that include results that can be applied to the above topics are also included in the journal. While it emphasizes theory, the journal also publishes empirical work in the subject area reflecting cross-fertilizing between theoretical and empirical research. Readers will find original research articles, surveys, and book reviews.Officially cited as: Soc Choice Welf
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