消費稅的宣示效果

Announcement Effects of Consumption Taxes

本篇文章研究消費稅增加對總體經濟在長期恆定狀態以及傳遞動態的影響。當我們只研究長期恆定狀態時，消費稅增加只會對民眾福利有負面影響。即使我們研究傳遞動態，如果政府執行政策沒有事先宣告，消費稅也只會帶來福利損失。除此之外，若政府在執行政策前事先宣告，本篇文章可以得到當該經濟體的民眾的消費跨期替代彈性較低，福利損失會較少；但若是宣告到執行政策的間隔時間較長，福利損失會增加。本文的結果在無休閒勞動選擇，或是內生成長模型，或是不同效用函數之下皆可成立。

This paper investigates the effect of an increase in consumption taxes both in the steady state and along the transitional dynamics. We find that a higher consumption tax always reduces the household's welfare if we only investigate the steady state. If the government implements the policy without declaring it in advance, then a higher consumption tax also has a welfare cost. In addition, if we consider an announcement effect for a change in the consumption tax, then the welfare cost drops when the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for consumption is lower, but rises under a longer period of time between the policy's announcement and its implementation. The above results still hold under no leisure-labor trade-off, under an endogenous growth model, or under different utility functions.