Marginal cost of public funds

Last updated

The marginal cost of public funds (MCF) is a concept in public finance which measures the loss incurred by society in raising less revenues to finance government spending due to the distortion of resource allocation caused by taxation. [1] Formally, it is defined as the ratio of the marginal value of a monetary unit raised by the government and the value of that marginal private monetary unit. The applications of the marginal cost of public funds include the Samuelson condition for the optimal provision of public goods and the optimal corrective taxation of externalities in public economic theory, the determination of tax-smoothing policy rules in normative public debt analysis and social cost-benefit analysis common in practical policy analysis.

Contents

History

The initial statement of the MCF problem is generally attributed to Pigou (1947), who stressed the application of the cost-benefit rule to the financing of public spending. [2] Later, the modification of the Samuelson rule for the optimal provision of public services through the inclusion of a measure of the MCF performed by Stiglitz and Dasgupta (1971), Diamond and Mirrlees (1971) and Atkinson and Stern (1974) proved to be a theoretical milestone. [3] Complementary, Harberger's (1964, 1971) contributions on the issue of excess burden measurement further influenced the development of the MCF concept, though he focused on the average excess burden (AEB) rather than on the MEB. The first attempt at measuring the MEB is commonly attributed to Campbell (1975). [4] Measurement of the MCF, however, was first attempted by Browning (1976), although the inclusion of "substitution effects" impairs his exercise. [5]

Conceptual foundations

The theoretical foundations of the MCF can be found in the excess burden of taxation as measured by equivalent variation, compensating variation and consumer surplus. Relatedly, the social MCF is the basis for the conditions of an optimal tax system and optimal spending on public services. Thus, the outcome of a tax reform can be calculated using pre- and post-reform MCFs as well as price indices. Practically, MCFs can be calculated based on the tax rate and the elasticities of demand and supply. It is consequently related to the (compensating variation-based) marginal excess burden of taxation (MEB), but is comparatively superior in terms of policy analysis. [6]

It is not a net cost, as it isolates the revenue side from the expenditure side of government. For microeconomic analysis, the social weights attributable to the origin and destination unit equally affect the net total.

According to Dahlby (2008), while a substantial literature on the marginal cost of public funds (MCF) has emerged over the last twenty years, much of this literature is fragmented because authors have used different measures for the MCF, or its associated concept, the marginal excess burden (MEB).

Criticism

Jacobs (2018) identifies four problems with respect to the marginal cost of public funds: (1) The lack of consensus in the literature on a common definition of the MCF, notably the dichotomy between the Pigou-Harberger-Browning (PHB) approach using compensated wage elasticities of labor supply and the Atkinson-Stern-Ballard-Fullerton (ASBF) approach using uncompensated wage elasticities of labor supply. (2) Contradicting intuition, standard MCF measures are unequal to one for non-distortionary lump-sum taxes. (3) The normalization of the tax system influences the MCF for both lump-sum and distortionary taxation. (4) Most MCF concepts ignore the reasons for distortionary taxes, namely, redistributional benefits. [7]

Literature

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10797-017-9481-0

Related Research Articles

A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer by a governmental organization in order to collectively fund government spending, public expenditures, or as a way to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax compliance refers to policy actions and individual behaviour aimed at ensuring that taxpayers are paying the right amount of tax at the right time and securing the correct tax allowances and tax relief. The first known taxation took place in Ancient Egypt around 3000–2800 BC. Taxes consist of direct or indirect taxes and may be paid in money or as its labor equivalent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deadweight loss</span> Measure of lost economic efficiency

In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit does not equal marginal cost – in other words, there are either goods being produced despite the cost of doing so being larger than the benefit, or additional goods are not being produced despite the fact that the benefits of their production would be larger than the costs. The deadweight loss is the net benefit that is missed out on. While losses to one entity often lead to gains for another, deadweight loss represents the loss that is not regained by anyone else. This loss is therefore attributed to both producers and consumers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Externality</span> In economics, an imposed cost or benefit

In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced components that are involved in either consumer or producer market transactions. Air pollution from motor vehicles is one example. The cost of air pollution to society is not paid by either the producers or users of motorized transport to the rest of society. Water pollution from mills and factories is another example. All (water) consumers are made worse off by pollution but are not compensated by the market for this damage. A positive externality is when an individual's consumption in a market increases the well-being of others, but the individual does not charge the third party for the benefit. The third party is essentially getting a free product. An example of this might be the apartment above a bakery receiving some free heat in winter. The people who live in the apartment do not compensate the bakery for this benefit.

This aims to be a complete article list of economics topics:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public finance</span> Study of the role of government within the economy

Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achieve desirable effects and avoid undesirable ones. The purview of public finance is considered to be threefold, consisting of governmental effects on:

  1. The efficient allocation of available resources;
  2. The distribution of income among citizens; and
  3. The stability of the economy.

A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases. "Regressive" describes a distribution effect on income or expenditure, referring to the way the rate progresses from high to low, so that the average tax rate exceeds the marginal tax rate.

A Pigouvian tax is a tax on any market activity that generates negative externalities. A Pigouvian tax is a method that tries to internalize negative externalities to achieve the Nash equilibrium and optimal Pareto efficiency. The tax is normally set by the government to correct an undesirable or inefficient market outcome and does so by being set equal to the external marginal cost of the negative externalities. In the presence of negative externalities, social cost includes private cost and external cost caused by negative externalities. This means the social cost of a market activity is not covered by the private cost of the activity. In such a case, the market outcome is not efficient and may lead to over-consumption of the product. Often-cited examples of negative externalities are environmental pollution and increased public healthcare costs associated with tobacco and sugary drink consumption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Lindahl</span> Swedish economist

Erik Lindahl was a Swedish economist. He was professor of economics at Uppsala University 1942–58 and in 1956–59 he was the President of the International Economic Association. He was an also an advisor to the Swedish government and the central bank, and in 1943 was elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Lindahl posed the question of financing public goods in accordance with individual benefits. The quantity of the public good satisfies the requirement that the aggregate marginal benefit equals the marginal cost of providing the good.

In economics, tax incidence or tax burden is the effect of a particular tax on the distribution of economic welfare. Economists distinguish between the entities who ultimately bear the tax burden and those on whom the tax is initially imposed. The tax burden measures the true economic effect of the tax, measured by the difference between real incomes or utilities before and after imposing the tax, and taking into account how the tax causes prices to change. For example, if a 10% tax is imposed on sellers of butter, but the market price rises 8% as a result, most of the tax burden is on buyers, not sellers. The concept of tax incidence was initially brought to economists' attention by the French Physiocrats, in particular François Quesnay, who argued that the incidence of all taxation falls ultimately on landowners and is at the expense of land rent. Tax incidence is said to "fall" upon the group that ultimately bears the burden of, or ultimately suffers a loss from, the tax. The key concept of tax incidence is that the tax incidence or tax burden does not depend on where the revenue is collected, but on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply. As a general policy matter, the tax incidence should not violate the principles of a desirable tax system, especially fairness and transparency. The concept of tax incidence is used in political science and sociology to analyze the level of resources extracted from each income social stratum in order to describe how the tax burden is distributed among social classes. That allows one to derive some inferences about the progressive nature of the tax system, according to principles of vertical equity.

Arnold Carl Harberger is an American economist. His approach to the teaching and practice of economics is to emphasize the use of analytical tools that are directly applicable to real-world issues. His influence on academic economics is reflected in part by the widespread use of the term "Harberger triangle" to refer to the standard graphical depiction of the efficiency cost of distortions of competitive equilibrium.

A Lindahl tax is a form of taxation conceived by Erik Lindahl in which individuals pay for public goods according to their marginal benefits. In other words, they pay according to the amount of satisfaction or utility they derive from the consumption of an additional unit of the public good. Lindahl taxation is designed to maximize efficiency for each individual and provide the optimal level of a public good.

In economics, the excess burden of taxation is one of the economic losses that society suffers as the result of taxes or subsidies. Economic theory posits that distortions change the amount and type of economic behavior from that which would occur in a free market without the tax. Excess burdens can be measured using the average cost of funds or the marginal cost of funds (MCF). Excess burdens were first discussed by Adam Smith.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tax policy</span> Choice by a government as to what taxes to levy, in what amounts, and on whom

Tax policy refers to the guidelines and principles established by a government for the imposition and collection of taxes. It encompasses both microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects, with the former focusing on issues of fairness and efficiency in tax collection, and the latter focusing on the overall quantity of taxes to be collected and its impact on economic activity. The tax framework of a country is considered a crucial instrument for influencing the country's economy.

In neoclassical economics, a market distortion is any event in which a market reaches a market clearing price for an item that is substantially different from the price that a market would achieve while operating under conditions of perfect competition and state enforcement of legal contracts and the ownership of private property. A distortion is "any departure from the ideal of perfect competition that therefore interferes with economic agents maximizing social welfare when they maximize their own". A proportional wage-income tax, for instance, is distortionary, whereas a lump-sum tax is not. In a competitive equilibrium, a proportional wage income tax discourages work.

Optimal tax theory or the theory of optimal taxation is the study of designing and implementing a tax that maximises a social welfare function subject to economic constraints. The social welfare function used is typically a function of individuals' utilities, most commonly some form of utilitarian function, so the tax system is chosen to maximise the aggregate of individual utilities. Tax revenue is required to fund the provision of public goods and other government services, as well as for redistribution from rich to poor individuals. However, most taxes distort individual behavior, because the activity that is taxed becomes relatively less desirable; for instance, taxes on labour income reduce the incentive to work. The optimization problem involves minimizing the distortions caused by taxation, while achieving desired levels of redistribution and revenue. Some taxes are thought to be less distorting, such as lump-sum taxes and Pigouvian taxes, where the market consumption of a good is inefficient, and a tax brings consumption closer to the efficient level.

The Henry George theorem states that under certain conditions, aggregate spending by government on public goods will increase aggregate rent based on land value more than that amount, with the benefit of the last marginal investment equaling its cost. The theory is named for 19th century U.S. political economist and activist Henry George.

Public economics(or economics of the public sector) is the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and equity. Public economics builds on the theory of welfare economics and is ultimately used as a tool to improve social welfare. Welfare can be defined in terms of well-being, prosperity, and overall state of being.

Several theories of taxation exist in public economics. Governments at all levels need to raise revenue from a variety of sources to finance public-sector expenditures.

Optimal capital income taxation is a subarea of optimal tax theory which studies the design of taxes on capital income such that a given economic criterion like utility is optimized.

Optimal labour income tax is a sub-area of optimal tax theory which refers to the study of designing a tax on individual labour income such that a given economic criterion like social welfare is optimized.

References

  1. ↑ Dahlby, B. (2008). The Marginal Cost of Public Funds: Theory and Application. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 1.
  2. ↑ Pigou, A.C. (1948). A Study in Public Finance. 3rd ed. London: Macmillan.
  3. ↑ Stiglitz, J.E., Dasgupta, P. (1971). Differential Taxation, Public Goods, and Economic Efficiency. Review of Economic Studies, 38(2), pp. 151-174.
  4. ↑ Campbell, H.F. (1975). Deadweight Loss and Commodity Taxation in Canada. Canadian Journal of Economics, 8(3), pp. 441-447.
  5. ↑ Browning, E.K. (1976). The Marginal Cost of Public Funds. Journal of Political Economy. 84(2), pp. 283-298.
  6. ↑ Dahlby (2008), pp. 11-13.
  7. ↑ "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds is One at the Optimal Tax System"
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.