Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161131 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10508
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper revisits the standard model of labor supply under two additional assumptions: consumption requires time and some limited amount of work is enjoyable. Whereas introducing each assumption without the other one does not produce novel insights, combining them together does if the wage rate is sufficiently high. For top earners, work has a positive marginal utility at the optimum and above a critical wage level it converts into a pure consumption good. Their labor-supply curve is first backward bending and then vertical. This can justify an optimal marginal tax rate on top incomes equal to 100 percent. Top earners in the vertical half-line of the labor-supply curve optimally refrain from spending their entire income. At the macroeconomic level, this can generate a lack of effective demand. With some qualifications, these findings carry over to models that include savings and philanthropy.
Subjects: 
super-rich
labor supply
time allocation
effective demand
optimal taxation of top labor incomes
JEL: 
J22
H21
H24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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