Browsing Working papers by Author "Aronsson, Thomas"
Now showing items 1-20 of 21
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Animal Welfare and Social Decisions
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2011-01)This paper analyzes the standard welfare economics assumption of anthropocentric welfarism, i.e., that only human well-being counts intrinsically. Alternatives where animal welfare matters intrinsically are explored ... -
Charity as Income Redistribution: A Model with Optimal Taxation, Status, and Social Stigma
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof; Wendner, Ronald (2019-09)Our framework integrates (i) public and private redistribution, (ii) the warm glow of giving and stigma of receiving charitable donations, and (iii) status concerns emanating from social comparisons with respect to charitable ... -
Charity, Status, and Optimal Taxation: Welfarist and Non-Welfarist Approaches
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof; Wendner, Ronald (University of Gothenburg, 2021-06)This paper analyzes optimal taxation of charitable giving to a public good in a Mirrleesian framework with social comparisons. Leisure separability together with zero transaction costs of giving imply that charitable giving ... -
Charity, Status, and Optimal Taxation: Welfarist and Paternalist Approaches
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof; Wendner, Ronald (2019-04)This paper deals with tax policy responses to charitable giving, defined in terms of voluntary contributions to a public good, to which the government also contributes through public revenue; the set of tax instruments ... -
Conspicuous Leisure: Optimal Income Taxation when both Relative Consumption and Relative Leisure Matter
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2009-04-21)Previous studies on public policy under relative consumption concerns have ignored the role of leisure comparisons. This paper considers a two-type optimal nonlinear income tax model where people care both about their ... -
Genuine Saving and Conspicuous Consumption
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2016-01)Much evidence suggests that people are concerned with their relative consumption, i.e., their own consumption relative to that of others. Yet, conspicuous consumption and the corresponding social costs have so far been ... -
Genuine Saving and Conspicuous Consumption
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2014-11)Much evidence suggests that people are concerned with their relative consumption, i.e., their consumption in relation to the consumption of others. Yet, the social costs of conspicuous consumption have so far played little ... -
Inequality Aversion and Marginal Income Taxation
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2016-10)This paper deals with tax policy responses to inequality aversion by examining the first-best Pareto-efficient marginal tax structure when people are inequality averse. In doing so, we distinguish between four different ... -
Inequality Aversion, Externalities, and Pareto-Efficient Income taxation
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2020-05)Abstract This paper analyzes Pareto-efficient marginal income taxation taking into account externalities induced through individual inequality aversion, meaning that people have preferences for equality. In doing so, we ... -
Keeping up with the Joneses, the Smiths and the Tanakas: On International Tax Coordination and Social Comparisons
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2015-05)Much evidence suggests that between-country social comparisons have become more important over time due to globalization. This paper analyzes optimal income taxation in a multi-country economy, where consumers derive utility ... -
Optimal Taxation and Other-Regarding Preferences
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (University of Gothenburg, 2023-10)The present paper analyzes optimal redistributive income taxation in a Mirrleesian framework extended with other-regarding preferences at the individual level. We start by developing a general model where the other-regarding ... -
Paternalism against Veblen: Optimal Taxation and Non-Respected Preferences for Social Comparisons
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2014-11)This paper deals with optimal income taxation and relative consumption under a welfarist government that fully respects people’s preferences and a paternalist government that does not share the consumer preference for ... -
POSITIONAL CONCERNS IN AN OLG MODEL: OPTIMAL LABOR AND CAPITAL INCOME TAXATION
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2009-04-16)This paper concerns optimal income taxation under asymmetric information in a two-type overlapping generations model, where people care about their relative consumption compared to others. The appearance of positional ... -
Positional Concerns with Multiple Reference Points: Optimal Income Taxation and Public Goods in an OLG Model
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2008-05-19)This paper concerns optimal income taxation and provision of a state-variable public good under asymmetric information in a two-type overlapping generations model, where people care about their relative consumption. Each ... -
POSITIONAL PREFERENCES IN TIME AND SPACE: IMPLICATIONS FOR OPTIMAL INCOME TAXATION
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2010-01-22)This paper concerns optimal nonlinear taxation in an OLG model with two ability-types, where people care about their own consumption relative to (i) other people’s current consumption, (ii) own past consumption, and (iii) ... -
Publicly Provided Private Goods and Optimal Taxation when Consumers Have Positional Preferences
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2013-03)This paper analyzes optimal differential commodity taxation, together with optimal nonlinear income taxation, in order to deal with positional preferences. It also derives the optimal public provision of private goods both ... -
Redistribution through Charity and Optimal Taxation when People are Concerned with Social Status
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof; Wendner, Ronald (2016-01)This paper deals with tax policy responses to charitable giving based on a model of optimal redistributive income taxation. The major contribution is the simultaneous treatment of (i) warm-glow and stigma effects of ... -
Social Comparisons and Optimal Taxation in a Small Open Economy
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof; Sjögren, Tomas (2016-05)Almost all previous studies on optimal taxation and status consumption are based on closed model-economies. This paper analyzes how international capital mobility – which may constrain the use of capital income taxation ... -
State-Variable Public Goods and Social Comparisons over Time
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2013-02)The optimal provision of a state-variable public good, where the global climate is the prime example, is analyzed in a model where people care about their relative consumption. We consider both keeping-up-with-the-Joneses ... -
Veblens Theory of the Leisure Class Revisited: Implications for Optimal Income Taxation
Aronsson, Thomas; Johansson-Stenman, Olof (2010-08)Almost all previous studies on public policy under relative consumption concerns have ignored the role of leisure for status comparisons. Inspired by Veblen (1899), this paper considers a two-type optimal income tax model, ...