Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods

40 Pages Posted: 2 Jan 2008

See all articles by Tomer Blumkin

Tomer Blumkin

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Bradley J. Ruffle

McMaster University

Yosef Ganun

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: January 2008

Abstract

The public finance literature demonstrates the equivalence between consumption and labor income (wage) taxes. We construct an environment in which individuals make real labor-leisure choices and spend their earned income on real goods. We use this experimental framework to test whether a labor income tax and an equivalent consumption tax lead to an identical labor-leisure allocation. Despite controlling for subjects' work ability and inherent labor-leisure preferences and not allowing for saving, subjects reduce their labor supply significantly more in response to an income tax than they do in response to an equivalent consumption tax. We discuss the economic implications of a policy shift from an income to a consumption tax.

Keywords: experimental economics, tax equivalence, income tax, consumption tax, behavioral economics

JEL Classification: C91, H22, H24, H31

Suggested Citation

Blumkin, Tomer and Ruffle, Bradley J. and Ganun, Yosef, Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods (January 2008). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 2194, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1079784 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1079784

Tomer Blumkin

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Department of Economics ( email )

Beer-Sheva 84105
Israel
+972 8 647 2268 (Phone)
+972 8 647 2941 (Fax)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Bradley J. Ruffle (Contact Author)

McMaster University ( email )

1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/people/ruffle-bradley

Yosef Ganun

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev ( email )

1 Ben-Gurion Blvd
Beer-Sheba 84105, 84105
Israel

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