Ben J. Heijdra

Environmental tax policy and intergenerational distribution

Abstract We study the effects of environmental taxation within the context of an overlapping generations model. The quality of the environment is modelled as a durable consumption good. Introduction of the environmental tax harms old existing generations and benefits young existing generations as well as all future generations. Increasing the tax in a Pareto-improving manner is easier the higher the pre-existing tax. The reverse holds if tax policy is decided by majority rule. A suitably designed bond policy can be used to redistribute the efficiency gains due to the internalisation of environmental externalities across the generations.

Keynesian Multipliers and the Cost of Public Funds under Monopolistic Competition

The authors extend macroeconomic models of imperfect competition with Keynesian features to allow for nonunitary elasticities between leisure and consumption and the effect of product variety on multipliers and welfare. Provided preference for diversity is sufficiently strong, the real national income multiplier for a given rise in real public spending is larger under free than under restricted entry and exit of firms. This implies a procyclical real consumer wage. With lump-sum taxes, the marginal cost of public funds is below unity. Optimal public spending may be countercyclical. More priority for public goods raises the long-run cost of public funds. Copyright 1996 by Royal Economic Society.

Environmental Abatement and Intergenerational Distribution

This paper employs an overlapping generations model to explore the impact of public abatement on private investment and the intergenerational distribution of welfare. Whereas public abatement benefits old generations in terms of non-environmental welfare, future generations gain most in terms of environmental welfare. The overall benefits tend to be smallest for generations born at the time of the unanticipated policy shock. Public debt policy, however, can be employed to ensure that welfare gains are distributed more equally across the various generations. Such a policy implies that natural capital crowds out man-made capital.

The Macroeconomic Dynamics of Demographic Shocks

The paper employs an extended Yaari-Blanchard model of overlapping generations to study how the macroeconomy is affected over time by various demographic changes. It is shown that a proportional decline in fertility and death rates has qualitatively similar effects to capital income subsidies; both per capita savings and per capita consumption increase in the new steady state. A drop in the birth rate, while keeping the death rate constant, reduces per capita savings, but increases per capita consumption, particularly if intertemporal labor supply is very elastic. If the generational turnover effect is sufficiently strong, however, a decline in the birth rate may, contrary to standard results, gives rise to an increase in per capita savings. Finally, a fertility rate reduction which leaves unaffected the rate of generational turnover is shown to have effects qualitatively similar to those of a fall in public consumption. Both per capita savings and per capita output decline, but per capita consumption rises. The non-linear model is simulated to study the quantitative effects of non-infinitesimal demographic shocks.

Keynesian Multipliers, Direct Crowding Out, and the Optimal Provision of Public Goods

Abstract This paper studies Keynesian multipliers in a macroeconomic model with monopolistic competition. We allow public and private consumption goods to be perfect substitutes in private utility. This enables us to study the effect of direct crowding out on the size of national income, profit and employment multipliers for a given rise in real public spending. A positive real national income multiplier is obtained if consumers value public consumption less than private consumption. In addition, we determine the effective marginal cost of public funds and the optimal provision of public goods, both in the short run and in the long run.

A TRAGEDY OF ANNUITIZATION? LONGEVITY INSURANCE IN GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM

We construct a tractable discrete-time overlapping generations model of a closed economy and use it to study government redistribution of accidental bequests and private annuities in general equilibrium. Individuals face longevity risk as there is a positive probability of passing away before the retirement period. We find non-pathological cases where it is better for long-run welfare to waste accidental bequests than to give them to the elderly. Next we study the introduction of a perfectly competitive life insurance market offering actuarially fair annuities. There exists a tragedy of annuitization: although full annuitization of assets is privately optimal it is not socially beneficial due to adverse general equilibrium repercussions.

Tax Policy, the Macroeconomy, and Intergenerational Distribution

The paper studies the dynamic macroeconomic and welfare effects of tax policy in the context of an overlapping-generations model of the Yaari-Blanchard type for a closed economy. The model is extended to allow for endogenous labor supply and three tax instruments – namely, a capital tax, labor income tax, and consumption tax. It is shown that labor taxes increase welfare of old generations whereas capital and consumption taxes reduce their welfare.

Rent-Seeking with Pollution Taxation: An Extension

In a recent issue of this Journal, Dwight Lee analyzes pollution taxation in a rent-seeking environment. The purpose of this paper is to extend Lees basic framework to a second-best environment. In doing so it will be shown that a Pigovian tax may be the preferred rate even if rent-seeking costs are included. The paper is organized as follows. In section II we present a slightly modified version of Lees analysis of the optimal pollution tax in a rent-seeking environment. Having done so, it is shown that Lees specification of the optimal pollution tax must be modified in a second-best environment. Some general results that emerge from our analysis are summarized in a proposition. In section III we offer some concluding remarks. -from Authors

The hiring subsidy cum firing tax in a search model of unemployment

Abstract We study the macroeconomic and welfare effects of a tax-subsidy scheme on labour in a model with search unemployment. In a second-best world welfare increases if unemployment is inefficiently high or if there are pre-existing fiscal distortions.

Fiscal and environmental policy under monopolistic competition

SummaryKeynesian demand management offsets some of the distortions caused by monopolistic competition and thus induces multiplier effects on national income and environmental damages. The cost of public funds rises with the virtual environmental tax and the degree of competition in the product market. The virtual environmental tax rises with abatement and falls with the cost of public funds. Consequently, greener preferences induce a rise in the virtual environmental tax, the cost of public funds and public abatement, and a fall in the provision of traditional public goods. A greater preference for traditional public goods harms environmental quality, since both abatement and output fall. Protecting cartels lowers the cost of public funds and may raise the provision of both traditional public goods and abatement. Environmental quality may thus rise, but other components of social welfare will fall. The paper also analyses the effects of private abatement, pollution taxes, fiscal consolidation and the progressivity of the tax system on government policy, employment, environmental quality and welfare.