Alan J. Auerbach - Böcker

The debates about the what, who, and how of tax policy are at the core of politics, policy, and economics. The Economics of Tax Policy provides a straightforward overview of recent research in the economics of taxation.Tax policies generate considerable debate among the public, policymakers, and scholars. These disputes have grown more heated in the United States as the incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of the population continue to diverge. This important volume enhances understanding of the implications of taxation on behavior and social outcomes by having leading scholars evaluate key topics in tax policy. These include how changes to the individual income tax affect long-term economic growth; the challenges of tax administration, compliance, and enforcement; and environmental taxation and its effects on tax revenue, pollution emissions, economic efficiency, and income distribution. Also explored are tax expenditures, which are subsidy programs in the form of tax deductions, exclusions, credits, or favorable rates; how college attendance is influenced by tax credits and deductions for tuition and fees, tax-advantaged college savings plans, and student loan interest deductions; and how tax policy toward low-income families takes a number of forms with different distributional effects. Among the most contentious issues explored are influences of capital gains and estate taxation on the long term concentration of wealth; the interaction of tax policy and retirement savings and how policy can "nudge" improved planning for retirement; and how the reform of corporate and business taxation is central to current tax policy debates in the United States.By providing overviews of recent advances in thinking about how taxes relate to behavior and social goals, The Economics of Tax Policy helps inform the debate.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book undertakes a fundamental review of the existing international system of taxing business profit. It steps back from the current political debates on how to combat profit shifting and how taxing rights over the profits of the digitalized economy should be allocated. Instead, it starts from first principles to ask how we should evaluate a tax on business profit—and whether there is any good rationale for such a tax in the first place. It then goes on to evaluate the existing system and a number of alternatives that have been proposed. It argues that the existing system is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a need for radical reform. The key conclusion from the analysis is that there would be significant gains from a reform that moved the system towards taxing profit in the country in which a business made its sales to third parties. That conclusion informs two proposals that are put forward in detail and evaluated: the Residual Profit Allocation by Income (RPAI) and the Destination-based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT).The book is authored by group of economists and lawyers—the Oxford International Tax Group, chaired by Michael P. Devereux. It draws insights from both economics and law—including economic theory, empirical evidence on the impact of taxes, and an examination of practical issues of implementation—to assess the existing system and to consider fundamental reforms. This book will be useful to tax policy makers, tax professionals, academics, and anyone interested in tax policy.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book undertakes a fundamental review of the existing international system of taxing business profit. It steps back from the current political debates on how to combat profit shifting and how taxing rights over the profits of the digitalized economy should be allocated. Instead, it starts from first principles to ask how we should evaluate a tax on business profit—and whether there is any good rationale for such a tax in the first place. It then goes on to evaluate the existing system and a number of alternatives that have been proposed. It argues that the existing system is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a need for radical reform. The key conclusion from the analysis is that there would be significant gains from a reform that moved the system towards taxing profit in the country in which a business made its sales to third parties. That conclusion informs two proposals that are put forward in detail and evaluated: the Residual Profit Allocation by Income (RPAI) and the Destination-based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT).The book is authored by group of economists and lawyers—the Oxford International Tax Group, chaired by Michael P. Devereux. It draws insights from both economics and law—including economic theory, empirical evidence on the impact of taxes, and an examination of practical issues of implementation—to assess the existing system and to consider fundamental reforms. This book will be useful to tax policy makers, tax professionals, academics, and anyone interested in tax policy.

The takeover boom that began in the mid-1980s has exhibited many phenomena not previously observed, such as hostile takeovers and takeover defenses, a widespread use of cash as a means of payment for targeted firms, and the acquisitions of companies ranking among the largest in the country. With the aim of more fully understanding the implications of such occurances, contributors to this volume consider a broad range of issues as they analyze mergers and acquisitions and study the takeoveer process itself.

The realities of mounting government debt, tax burdens, and an ageing population raise serious concerns about the financial legacy confronting future generations. How great a fiscal burden will late-1990s policies leave to subsequent generations, and how might changes in those policies alter the intergenerational distribution of public welfare? Generational accounting has recently emerged as a robust new method of fiscal analysis and planning designed to assess the long-term sustainability of fiscal policy and to measure the extent of the financial load ultimately borne by present and future generations. A seminal contribution to public economics, generational accounting has already been adopted by 23 nations around the world. Combining late-1990s country-by-country generational analyses with a comprehensive review of generational accounting's innovative methodology, these papers are a resource for economists, political scientists and policy makers concerned with fiscal health and responsibility.

In the Handbook of Public Economics, vol. 5, top scholars provide context and order to new research about mechanisms that underlie both public finance theories and applications. These fundamental subjects follow the recent, steady movement away from rational decision-making and toward more personalized approaches to tax generation and expenditure, especially in terms of the use of psychological methods and financial incentives. Closely scrutinized subjects include new research in empirical (instead of theoretical) public finance, the methods for measuring taxes (both in revenue generation and expenditure), and the roles that taxes play in specific settings, such as emerging economies, urban settings, charitable giving, and among political entities (cities, counties, states, countries). Contributors look at both the "tax" and "expenditure" sides of public finance, emphasizing recent influences that psychology and philosophy have exerted in economics with articles on behavioral finance, charitable giving, and dynamic taxation. To a field enjoying rapid growth, their articles bring context and order, illuminating the mechanisms that underlie both public finance theories and applications.

Editor Raj Chetty is the recipient of the 2013 John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association Focuses on new approaches to both revenue generation and expenditures in public finance Presents coherent summaries of subjects in public economics that stretch from methodologies to applications Makes details about public economics accessible to scholars in fields outside economics

As public expenditures on health, education and transfer programmes increase, demographic change has a growing impact on public expenditures, and the incentives for behaviour created by public transfer programs increase as well. The essays in this volume discuss such topics as: demographic change and the outlook for Social Security and Medicare in the United States; long-term decision making under uncertainty; the effect of changing family structure on government spending; how the structure of public retirement policies has encouraged early retirement in some countries and not others; the response of local community spending to demographic change; and related topics. Contributors include many of the world's leading public finance economists and economic demographers.

As public expenditures on health, education and transfer programmes increase, demographic change has a growing impact on public expenditures, and the incentives for behaviour created by public transfer programs increase as well. The essays in this volume discuss such topics as: demographic change and the outlook for Social Security and Medicare in the United States; long-term decision making under uncertainty; the effect of changing family structure on government spending; how the structure of public retirement policies has encouraged early retirement in some countries and not others; the response of local community spending to demographic change; and related topics. Contributors include many of the world's leading public finance economists and economic demographers.

This book was first published in 2007. Most countries levy taxes on corporations, but the impact - and therefore the wisdom - of such taxes is highly controversial among economists. Does the burden of these taxes fall on wealthy shareowners, or is it passed along to those who work for, or buy the products of, corporations? Can a country with high corporate taxes remain competitive in the global economy? This book features research by leading economists and accountants that sheds light on these and related questions, including how taxes affect corporate dividend policy, stock market value, avoidance, and evasion. The studies promise to inform both future tax policy and regulatory policy, especially in light of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission that are having profound effects on the market for tax planning and auditing in the wake of the well-publicized accounting scandals in Enron and WorldCom.

Institutional Foundations of Public Finance integrates economic and legal perspectives on taxation and fiscal policy, offering a provocative assessment of the most important issues in public finance today.Part I, an in-depth look at the tax reform debate, examines the differences between an income and a consumption tax and poses significant questions about the systematic transition from one to the other, as well as about its implementation. Part II takes a focused look at a broad range of fiscal topics, including fiscal federalism, corporate finance, and fiscal language. As a whole, the volume reflects a keen interest in analyzing real-world problems, including fiscal regimes and institutions, that have major policy implications.

This important contribution to tax analysis presents seven related theoretical essays that examine the effects of capital income taxation on the behavior of firms. It is divided into three sections, focusing on optimal tax design, firm financial policy, and inflation. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the powerful role taxes play in shaping the behavior of American corporations, and also provide insights into the difficult task of tax reform.Alan Auerbach’s results suggest policies the government might adopt to promote the optimal accumulation of capital. He examines the implications for capital taxation of discrepancies between nominal depreciation rates and real economic depreciation, and suggests appropriate rules of thumb for determining when capital taxation is neutral among alternative investment projects. He also makes important contributions to the debate over the integration of corporate and personal taxes on capital income and to the behavioral puzzle of why corporations pay dividends to their shareholders.

Tax experts across the political spectrum agree that the current rate structure is not rational and that potential gains from reform could be remarkable. Accordingly, tax reform is widely viewed as desirable. However, there is not a clear consensus on what reforms are most desirable or feasible. In "Toward Fundamental Tax Reform", eleven leading tax scholars, including a Nobel Prize winner, outline their ideas about tax reform. The original essays provide readers with concise but varying perspectives on the possibilities of tax reform. They also focus attention on key questions in the scholarly debate: Would a different tax code dramatically alter the functioning of the economy? How much damage does the current law do? Can relatively small changes to the tax code deliver most of the benefits of more dramatic reforms like the flat tax? Are political forces that oppose efficient tax systems simply too powerful to overcome? Will tax reform inevitably harm the poor? Can a tax reform, if enacted, be sustained?

This book was first published in 2007. Most countries levy taxes on corporations, but the impact - and therefore the wisdom - of such taxes is highly controversial among economists. Does the burden of these taxes fall on wealthy shareowners, or is it passed along to those who work for, or buy the products of, corporations? Can a country with high corporate taxes remain competitive in the global economy? This book features research by leading economists and accountants that sheds light on these and related questions, including how taxes affect corporate dividend policy, stock market value, avoidance, and evasion. The studies promise to inform both future tax policy and regulatory policy, especially in light of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission that are having profound effects on the market for tax planning and auditing in the wake of the well-publicized accounting scandals in Enron and WorldCom.

net income. It draws on the experience gained when the social security system in Italy was reformed in the early 1990s, which led to drastic reductions in the number of claims against the statutory pension scheme. The various sectors of the population (elderly people, young people, public employees as opposed to private­ sector employees, etc.) were affected to differing degrees. From Brugiavini's estimates, it becomes clear that a reduction in claims against the statutory pension system has led to a markedly increased willingness to save, particularly in the sectors of the population which were most affected. Reinhold Schnabel starts by discussing possible consequences of a pension cut from a German perspective. He discusses possible effects on saving and labour supply. In the second part of his comments he questions whether all of Brugiavini's interpretations of the "Italian experiment" are convincing. He doubts in particular, whether the reform was unexpected.