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Corporate Taxation in the Open Economy without Pareto

Author

Listed:
  • Bawa, Siraj
Abstract
This paper studies how optimal corporate tax rates differ when firm productivities are drawn from a lognormal distribution instead of a Pareto, the literature standard, in a model of monopolistic competition. Recent literature has demonstrated that lognormal distributions are a better fit for firm productivities; I not only find that this result holds in developing economies, but that the distributional choice has significant implications for the properties of the optimal corporate tax rates. I show this using an enhanced Melitz model with heterogeneous sectors subject to a framework of corporate taxation. This tax framework consists of a single economy-wide statutory tax that is augmented by a set of sector-specific depreciation allowance rates which distort the effective tax rate by sector. I find that using the Pareto distribution mutes a transmission channel between the corporate tax instruments and the equilibrium variables which leads to qualitative different policy implications compared to those obtained under the lognormal distribution. Additionally, my model can reconcile recent empirical studies that come to seemingly conflicting conclusions about the effects of statutory tax rates on export dynamics. I do this by showing that the level of the sector-specific tax rate determines whether or not changing the statutory tax rate will increase the probability of firms engaging in exporting.

Suggested Citation

  • Bawa, Siraj, 2017. "Corporate Taxation in the Open Economy without Pareto," MPRA Paper 80857, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Aug 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:80857
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    16. repec:wsr:wpaper:y:2012:i:088 is not listed on IDEAS
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    Cited by:

    1. Bawa, Siraj G., 2017. "Good intentions bad outcomes: the effects of investment subsidies on agricultural productivity," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258485, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate tax policy; Melitz-Pareto; asymmetric sectors; trade and taxation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F68 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Policy
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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