遺產稅的效率面

On the Efficiency Aspect of Inheritance Taxation

遺產稅文獻，以Piketty and Saez（2013）為代表，假設資本市場完全，因此，所有遺產賺取相同的資本報酬。但是如果資本市場不完全，不同人繼承的遺產即可能賺取不同的資本報酬。本文證明，課徵遺產稅可以矯正資本市場不完全所造成的資源錯誤配置，以美國經濟體為例，將目前遺產稅率提升到最適水準，在長期可以增加美國總生產力達6.29％。

Bequest by definition is what a child receives from her deceased parent. This fact implies that returns to bequeathed capital may vary substantially across children if the capital market is not perfect. Previous studies on inheritance tax such as Piketty and Saez (2013), however, are mostly built on the perfect-capital-market premise under which bequeathed capital all receives a common rate of return. Theoretically, this paper identifies inheritance tax as a device for increasing TFP (total factor productivity) by correcting the possibly inefficient misallocation of bequeathed capital. Numerically, calibrating the U.S. economy suggests that it is optimal to significantly increase the progressivity of the inheritance tax from the current level, which contributes to a steady-state 6.29% increase in TFP.