Tax policy and the financing of innovation
We study tax policy in a Schumpeterian growth model with asymmetric information in the financing of innovation. Investors cannot a priori distinguish between more or less talented entrepreneurs. Net-worth allows talented entrepreneurs to self-invest and avoid being pooled with less talented entrepre...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Elsevier
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31928/ |
| Summary: | We study tax policy in a Schumpeterian growth model with asymmetric information in the financing of innovation. Investors cannot a priori distinguish between more or less talented entrepreneurs. Net-worth allows talented entrepreneurs to self-invest and avoid being pooled with less talented entrepreneurs in the credit market. Increasing net-worth boosts innovation even when financed through higher profit taxes. Taxing consumption effectively raises net-worth and subsidizes profits simultaneously. Sufficiently taxing consumption implements the social optimum free of adverse selection. If forced to tax consumption less, the government implements a second best allocation with adverse selection when boosting net-worth enough to avoid adverse selection requires taxing profits excessively. |
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