无谓损失与供给弹性-上海杉达学院.PPT

* * * Engage your students and give them a brief break from lecture. Show this slide and ask for students to volunteer their thoughts. The question on this slide will almost certainly elicit a few different opinions. Of course, there is no single “correct” answer – one choice is not unambiguously better than the other. A tax on groceries would be more efficient (smaller DWL) than a tax on restaurant meals. However, a tax on groceries would hurt people with low incomes proportionately more than people with higher incomes, as the former spend a larger percentage of their income on groceries. Hence, such a tax would be regressive. Once again, we see the tradeoff between efficiency and equity/equality. * * The next few slides are adapted from the section “Case Study: The Deadweight Loss Debate” in this chapter of the textbook. The title of this slide is actually a direct quote from this section. I think it makes a catchier title for these slides than “the deadweight loss debate.” Why the marginal tax rate is relevant: One of the 10 Principles from Chapter 1 is “rational people think at the margin.” This applies to workers, as well. When Susan considers increasing her hours, she takes into account the extra income she’d earn from working a few more hours a week. The extra income on each additional hour equals the hourly wage minus the marginal tax rate. * * According to this view, the DWL from labor taxes is small. This is relevant to the question “how big should the government be?”, because a high DWL would argue for restraining the size of government. * * The textbook has an “In The News” box containing an excellent WSJ article on the effect of tax rates on work effort. * * * * The new DWL is four times the initial DWL, even though the tax is just twice as large. * The new DWL is nine times the initial DWL, even though the tax is only three times as large. * * The “implication” in the green box is not in the textbook, so it is not suppor