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Optimal Taxes on Capital in the OLG Model with Uninsurable Idiosyncratic Income Risk

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  • Krueger, Dirk
  • Ludwig, Alexander
Abstract
We characterize the optimal linear tax on capital in an Overlapping Generations model with two period lived households facing uninsurable idiosyncratic labor income risk. The Ramsey government internalizes the general equilibrium feedback of private precautionary saving. For logarithmic utility our full analytical solution of the Ramsey problem shows that the optimal aggregate saving rate is independent of income risk. The optimal time-invariant tax on capital is increasing in income risk. Its sign depends on the extent of risk and on the Pareto weight of future generations. If the Ramsey tax rate that maximizes steady state utility is positive, then implementing this tax rate permanently generates a Pareto-improving transition even if the initial equilibrium is dynamically efficient. We generalize our results to Epstein-Zin-Weil utility and show that the optimal steady state saving rate is increasing in income risk if and only if the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is smaller than 1.

Suggested Citation

  • Krueger, Dirk & Ludwig, Alexander, 2018. "Optimal Taxes on Capital in the OLG Model with Uninsurable Idiosyncratic Income Risk," CEPR Discussion Papers 12717, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12717
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Idiosyncratic risk; Taxation of capital; Overlapping generations; Precautionary saving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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