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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Certain Effects Of Random Taxes, James R. Hines Jr., Michael J. Keen
Certain Effects Of Random Taxes, James R. Hines Jr., Michael J. Keen
Articles
This paper explores the implications of tax rate randomness, identifying circumstances in which revenue-neutral rate variability increases profitability, economic activity, and the efficiency of resource allocation. Furthermore, with heterogeneous taxpayers, tax rate variability is shown to perform an efficiency-enhancing screening function, imposing heavier expected tax burdens on less responsive taxpayers. And while efficient tax randomness enables governments to reduce average costs of taxation, it necessarily increases the marginal cost of taxation over some ranges of expected revenue, so may reduce efficient levels of government spending.
Investment Ramifications Of Distortionary Tax Subsidies, James R. Hines Jr., Jongsang Park
Investment Ramifications Of Distortionary Tax Subsidies, James R. Hines Jr., Jongsang Park
Articles
This paper examines the investment effects of tax subsidies for which some assets and not others are eligible. Distortionary tax subsidies concentrate investments in tax-favored assets, thereby reducing the expected pre-tax profitability of investment and reducing payoffs to bondholders in the event of default. Anticipation of asset substitution encourages lenders to require covenants in debt contracts, which only imperfectly address asset substitution and distort investment. The result is that borrowing is made more expensive, which in turn discourages investment. Borrowing rates can react so strongly that aggregate investment may rise very little, or even fall, in response to higher tax …