Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxation For Reduction Of Envy

QED Working Paper Number
991

This paper examines the optimal nonlinear income taxation problem based on Chaudhuri (1986) and Diamantaras and Thomson's (1990) λ-equitability in a two-class economy. An allocation is λ-equitable if no agent envies a proportion λ of the bundle of any other agent. We examine the properties of Pareto undominated allocations for various λ-equitability requirements. When there is one output, the marginal income tax rate can increase only if (but not if) leisure is a luxury. In a multi-commodity model with commodity taxes, the goods preferred by the low skilled agent and/or of high Hicksian elasticities are taxed more heavily.

Author(s)

Yukihiro Nishimura

JEL Codes

Keywords

Income Taxation
Envy

Working Paper

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