The Dynamic Efficiency Cost of Not taxing Housing / Jonathan Skinner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Skinner, Jonathan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w3454.

NBER working paper series no. w3454

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1990.

Summary:

Housing assets comprise nearly one-third of household wealth rot effectively escape income taxation. When housing is included in the life cycle model, the capital income tax is shown to be far more distortionary than previously thought. The reason is that capital income taxation stimulates the price of (untaxed) housing capital and thereby crowds out nonhousing wealth in the long-run. Even when aggregate saving is unaffected by the after-tax rate of return, the crowding out of nonhousing wealth erodes the tax base end generates very high measures of marginal excess burden. Movements in U.S. aggregate wealth are consistent with the predictions of the model. Overall household wealth as a ratio of national income in 1989 is nearly identical to the ratio in 1955, but the ratio of housing assets to nonhousing wealth has grown by 30 percent since 1970. In short, capital income taxation may attenuate capital accumulation through its impact on housing prices rather than through traditional incentive effects.

Notes:

Print version record

September 1990.