DP17146 Optimal Nonlinear Savings Taxation

Author(s):	Charles Brendon
Publication Date:	March 2022
Keyword(s):	Mirrleesian Taxation, New Dynamic Public Finance, Nonlinear Taxation, sufficient statistics
JEL(s):
Programme Areas:	Public Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=17146

This paper analyses the design of optimal nonlinear savings taxation, in a multi-period consumption-savings economy where consumers face persistent, uninsurable shocks to the marginal value that they place on consuming. Its main contributions are: (a) to show that shocks of this kind generically justify positive marginal savings taxes, and (b) to characterise these taxes by reference to a limited number of sufficient statistics. The method for obtaining this characterisation is generalisable, and provides a roadmap for reconnecting `Mirrleesian' and `sufficient statistics' approaches to dynamic taxation. Intuitively, dynamic asymmetric information problems imply significant restrictions on intertemporal consumption elasticities. These restrictions keep sufficient statistics representations manageable, despite the multi-dimensional choice setting.