AU kursuskatalog arkiv

2085: Public Finance ( forår 2009 - 10 ECTS )

Rammer for udbud

• Uddannelsessprog: engelsk
• Niveau:     COURSE LEVEL: Elective MSc course  
• Semester/kvarter: SEMESTER FOR WHICH THE COURSE DESCRIPTION APPLIES: Spring 2009  
• Timer per uge:   NUMBER OF HOURS PER WEEK: 4 hours per week for 12 weeks  
• Deltagerbegrænsning:
• Undervisningssted: Århus
• Hovedområde: Det Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultet
• Udbud ID: 15933

Formål

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

The students should be able to

• Identify the incentive effects and the resulting deadweight losses of taxation in a variety of economic settings
• Formulate and apply relevant models for analyzing tax incidence
• Derive optimal tax policies in simplified economic settings and reflect on the importance of the various assumptions for the optimal policies
• Apply the principles from the optimal tax literature to a specific tax reform problem

Indhold

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Taxation provides revenue for the public sector but also affects the incentives of private agents in many respects. To understand how taxation affects the economy a first task is to identify these incentive effects. This relates to private households' choice of labour supply, to their choice of commodity consumption to what extent activities to evade taxation are undertaken, and to the incentives to migrate. For firms taxation may affect localization decisions, the choice of financial structure etc. These incentive effects lead to deadweight losses of taxation, and the design optimal structures of taxation should lead to minimization of these deadweight losses. Identifying and implementing fully optimal tax structures are far from trivial, and often tax reforms are rather aimed at reducing the deadweight losses given the initial tax structure.

COURSE SUBJECT AREAS:

• Tax incidence and the deadweight loss of taxation
• Labour income taxation
• Commodity taxation
• Corporate taxation
• Tax evasion
• Migration and taxation
• International tax competition
• Optimal taxation
• Tax reform analysis

Faglige forudsætninger

REQUIRED COURSES (progression): 7515: Micro 2

Underviser

LECTURER: Bo Sandemann Rasmussen

Undervisnings- og arbejdsform

TEACHING METHOD: 

Lectures supplemented by occasional (voluntary) problem sets.

TEACHING LANGUAGE: English

Litteratur

LITERATURE: 

Hindriks, J. and G.D. Myles (2006): Intermediate Public Economics, MIT Press (ch. 14-16 and 18, 130 pages).

Salanié, B (2003): The Economics of Taxation, MIT Press (217 pages).

Auerbach, A.J. (1985): The Theory of Excess Burden and Optimal Taxation, in A.J. Auerbach and M. Feldstein, Handbook of Public Economics , vol. I, North-Holland, pp. 61-75 (15 pages).

Bovenberg A.L. (1999): Green Tax Reforms and the Double Dividend: An Updated Reader's Guide, International Tax and Public Finance , vol. 6, pp. 421-443 (23 pages).

Chamley, C. (1986): Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives, Econometrica , vol. 54, pp. 607-622 (16 pages).

Correia, I.H. (1996): Should Capital Income be Taxed in the Steady State? Journal of Public Economics , vol. 60, pp.147-151 (5 pages).

Jones, L.E., R.E. Manuelli and P.E. Rossi (1997): On the Optimal Taxation of Capital Income, Journal of Economic Theory , vol. 73, pp. 93-117 (25 pages).

Kleven, H.J. (2005): Taxation and Labor Supply, Lecture Note (35 pages).

Kleven, H.J. and C.T. Kreiner (2006): Evaluating the Trade-offs in Tax and Transfer Policy, Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen (60 pages).

Meghir, C. and D. Phillips (2008): Labour Supply and Taxes, IZA Discussion Paper No. 3405 (56 pages).

Rasmussen, B.S. (2002): Efficiency Wages and the Long-Run Incidence of Progressive Taxation. Journal of Economics , 76, 2002, pp. 155-175 (20 pages).

Saez, E. (2001): Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates, Review of Economic Studies , vol. 68, pp. 205-229 (25 pages).

Saez, E. (2002): The Desirability of Commodity Taxation under Non-Linear Income Taxation and Heterogeneous Tastes, Journal of Public Economics , vol. 83, pp. 217-230 (16 pages).

Sørensen, P.B. (2007): Can Capital Income Taxes Survive? And Should They? CESifo Economic Studies , vol. 53, pp. 172-228 (51 pages).

Wilson, J.D. and D.E. Wildasin (2004): Tax Competition: Bane or Boon, Journal of Public Economics , vol. 88, pp. 1065-1091 (27 pages).

Lecture Notes (max. 50 pages).

Total: 777 pages (of which 600 pages will be required reading).

Bedømmelse

• Skriftlig, bedømt efter 7-skala med intern censur
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FORM OF ASSESSMENT: 4 hour written exam

EXAMINATION AIDS ALLOWED:

All - except any means of electronic communication equipment including calculators, mobile phones and PCs.