Rice Univesrity Logo
    • FAQ
    • Deposit your work
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   Rice Scholarship Home
    • Rice University Graduate Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Rice Scholarship Home
    • Rice University Graduate Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    A multi-region computational general equilibrium model of the United States, used for sub-national tax policy analysis

    Thumbnail
    Name:
    9631098.PDF
    Size:
    9.881Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    View/Open
    Author
    Williams, Michael Francis
    Date
    1996
    Advisor
    Mieszkowski, Peter
    Degree
    Doctor of Philosophy
    Abstract
    In my thesis I construct a four-region, four-product, three-factor, two income class applied general equilibrium model of the United States, which I use to examine several issues in sub-national tax incidence. Each of the four regions is an aggregate of several states. Within each region four products are produced; one is interregionally traded, one is not traded, one is provided by the region's government, and the last is provided by the national government. Each of the four products requires capital, skilled labor, and unskilled labor for its production. These factors are supplied by two types of households, Rich and Poor, who differ in their relative factor endowments and in their ability to relocate among regions (Rich may be mobile; Poor are immobile). Each household consumes each of the four products. Federal and regional governments tax households, firms, and products. A benchmark equilibrium is established in which product and factor markets clear and in which Rich households have no incentive to relocate among regions. I then simulate several tax policy changes. In the first group of simulations, a single region's tax rates are (separately and unilaterally) increased, with the revenue used to fund additional government spending. One conclusion drawn from these simulations is that household utilities fall in any region which unilaterally increases any of its tax instruments. Interestingly, however, the business capital tax is the least "painful" way for a regional government to unilaterally increase its tax revenue. In the second group of simulations, a regional government unilaterally eliminates its household taxes, replacing the lost revenue by increasing its business capital taxes. In these simulations, household utilities generally increase in the region that eliminates its household taxes, while utilities decrease in other regions. This result is especially robust for regions which are net capital importers--those regions in which producers use more capital than their regions' residents own. Sensitivity analysis reveals that my simulation results are fairly robust, even when important parameter estimates (such as elasticities of substitution in production and consumption) are varied.
    Keyword
    Economics
    Citation
    Williams, Michael Francis. "A multi-region computational general equilibrium model of the United States, used for sub-national tax policy analysis." (1996) Diss., Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/16947.
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Collections
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations [13408]

    Home | FAQ | Contact Us | Privacy Notice | Accessibility Statement
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892
    Site Map

     

    Searching scope

    Browse

    Entire ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Home | FAQ | Contact Us | Privacy Notice | Accessibility Statement
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892
    Site Map