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Key ideas:. Taxes affect behaviorAs persons seek to alter tax liabilityAttempts to alter tax liability are minimal under a lump sum" tax. Key ideas:. Deadweight loss from a taxRefers to how much worse people are under the given taxthan they would be under a lump sum tax that raised the same amo
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1. Taxation and Economic Efficiency Economics of Public Policy
PADM 625
Ben Muse
2. Key ideas: Taxes affect behavior
As persons seek to alter tax liability
Attempts to alter tax liability are minimal under a “lump sum” tax
3. Key ideas: Deadweight loss from a tax
Refers to how much worse people are under the given tax
than they would be under a lump sum tax that raised the same amount of revenue
4. Key ideas: Deadweight loss increases with teh size of the substitution effect (or the elasticity of demand)
and increases with the square of the tax rate
5. Lump sum taxes and deadweight losses
6. Deadweight losses increase with substitutability and square of tax rate
7. Deadweight loss increases disproportionately to the tax
8. Bigger welfare losses with more elastic demand curve
9. After some algebra -
Deadweight loss increases with the elasticity of demand
and with the square of the tax rate!
10. An example: Airline ticket tax
10% tax
estimated 0.5 price elasticity of demand
Deadweight loss equal to 2.5% of the revenue raised
11. Question 2
What is the deadweight loss from the mineral tax in problem 1, Chapter 18? What is the relationship between deadweight loss and supply curves? Relate this to the discussion of lump-sum taxes.
12. Question 3
Taxes and government expenditure programs affect a variety of other aspects of household behavior. Some economists, for instance, argue that they affect birth rates. What provisions of the U.S> tax system might affect the decision to have a child? What government expenditure programs?
13. Sources: Stiglitz, Chapter 19, “Taxation and Economic Efficiency”