Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/119413 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 1577
Publisher: 
Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Evanston, IL
Abstract: 
We study nonlinear income taxation in a Roy model in which agents' productivity is sectorspecific. We show that when income taxes can be sector-specific, the Diamond-Mirrlees theorem (according to which the second-best displays production efficiency) fails: social welfare (be it Rawlsian or Weighed Utilitarian) can be increased by assigning some agents to their least productive sector. By sacrificing production efficiency, the planner incurs second-order losses in total output, but obtains a first-order reduction in the informational costs of redistribution. The same result obtains when the government is constrained to a uniform income tax schedule, as long as sales taxes can be made sector-specific. In this latter case, our result also implies failure of the Atkinson-Stiglitz theorem (according to which, when preferences over consumption and leisure are separable, as they are in our economy, the second-best can be implemented with zero sales taxes).
Subjects: 
income taxation
occupational choice
sales taxes
sector-specific taxation
production efficiency
JEL: 
C72
D62
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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