Suchergebnisse

The purpose of the present paper is to examine theoretically and empirically how the maturity structure of government debt is affected by changes in its main macroeconomic determining factors. We organize our investigation around a maturity-structure model for Greece in which the optimal (annual) average maturity of a total of outstanding government bonds of different maturities is estimated over a thirty-year period. The optimal maturity level is then compared with the corresponding observed or actual level. We then use our empirical estimates to determine the response of optimal maturity to changes in its main determinants and make suggestions for corrective fiscal policy actions.

Résumé Cet article étudie les implications d'une augmentation exogène (diminution) du programme d'impôt sur le revenu pendant les heures travaillées par employé et par indépendant dans un modèle d'équilibre général. Le modèle est estimé pour la France, l'Italie, l'Espagne et le Portugal utilisant la technique d'évaluation de gmm . L'analyse équilibrée et les évaluations économétriques prouvent que les dispositions de retenue d'impôt diversifient la réponse des employés et des indépendants pour les ajustements dans le système d'impôt. Parmi les résultats, on note que, en présence (absence) des dispositions de retenue d'impôt, la courbe des ressources en main-d'œuvre peut avoir une inclinaison descendante ou ascendante. Ainsi, l'argument avancé par ceux qui préconisent l'exécution d'une stratégie visant la réduction des impôts sur le travail afin d'augmenter les incitations au besoin de travail, doit être soigneusement reconsidéré. JEL Code: E1, E6

Abstract
The present paper attempts to demonstrate that finding an appropriate trade-off between direct and indirect taxes can help smooth policy makers' way through reconciling the contradictory notions of equity and efficiency. Our theoretical and empirical analysis is based on the assumption that direct taxes discourage work effort, thus impinging on the incentives to supply labour, to save and to invest, and finally, to grow, whereas indirect taxes discourage consumption and bear more heavily on the poor. Central to our discussion is the argument that carefully designed adjustments in the tax mix can reduce distortions in the consumption-leisure decision, thus leading to an optimal allocation of resources between the equity and efficiency objectives. To derive a competitive equilibrium setting, a social welfare function is maximized and the first-order conditions are manipulated to trace out the optimal direct-indirect tax rates that pave the way for the equity-efficiency goals to be reconciled with each other.

AbstractThe standard methodology on tax‐effort (i.e., the ratio of actual tax revenue to its optimal level) is to run a regression of actual tax revenue on countries' specific (macroeconomic, demographic, geographical, political, social, and institutional) variables. The resulting predicted (fitted) values are then taken to represent the optimal (desired or maximum) level of tax revenue. The crucial issue of tracing out how the optimal tax revenue should be allocated to the fiscal objectives (equity, efficiency) does not seem to be of any interest to the researchers on tax‐effort. The present paper argues that the standard methodology is not without faults and needs revising. We demonstrate that an optimal tax system can be safely derived from maximizing a utility function with respect to (in)direct tax rates. The manipulation of the first‐order conditions, using a novel mathematical module, leads to an infinite number of optimal direct–indirect tax rates. The selection of the optimal mix of these tax rates is dependent on the country‐specific households' preferences over equity/efficiency, as they are formulated by voters' volition in election periods. A simulation procedure helps understanding how the optimal tax revenue is chosen and how it can be optimally allocated to fiscal objectives, in the context of a panel data set including a large number of developed and developing countries. Throughout our text, the optimal tax revenue is defined as the sum of the products of the optimal (in)direct tax rates and their corresponding tax bases. In the simple Arrow–Debreu economy, the above sum is shown to be equal to the difference between income and consumption.

This book examines the ways by which the European Union impacts economic and political processes in its member and candidate countries. Positive Turkish and negative Greek experiences suggest that the EU functions as a powerful catalyst of political and economic change, if towards various ends.