Taxes and market power: A principal component approach
Suppliers of differentiated goods make simultaneous pricing decisions, which are strategically linked. Because of market power, the equilibrium is inefficient. We study how a policymaker should target a budget-balanced tax-and-subsidy policy to increase welfare. A key tool is a certain basis for the goods space, determined by the network of interactions among suppliers. It consists of eigenbundles—orthogonal in the sense that a tax on any eigenbundle passes through only to its own price—with pass-through coefficients determined by associated eigenvalues. Our basis permits a simple characterization of optimal interventions. A planner maximizing consumer surplus should tax eigenbundles with low pass-through and subsidize ones with high pass-through. The Pigouvian leverage of the system—the gain in consumer surplus achievable by an optimal tax scheme—depends only on the dispersion of the eigenvalues of the matrix of strategic interactions. We interpret these results in terms of the network structure of the market.
Date: 17 June 2022, 14:15 (Friday, 8th week, Trinity 2022)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Seminar Room C or Register for online
Speaker: Ben Golub (Northwestern University)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Nuffield Economic Theory Seminar
Booking required?: Recommended
Booking url: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUld-uhqz8uGN1RQmc5-vrnQWKAqocTa8Zd
Audience: Public
Editor: Emma Heritage