题目：Information, Production Networks and Optimal Taxation

主讲人：陈思雨（中国人民大学）

摘要：This paper studies optimal taxation in an economy with information frictions and a production network across industries. I show that when all industries share the same information structure, production efficiency holds and optimal policy features no taxes on intermediate goods. Deviating from this benchmark, the optimal policy generally features non-zero taxes on intermediate goods and unequal taxes on consumption goods when information structure is heterogeneous across industries: The government should impose higher revenue taxes on an industry in recession when (i) it has greater information rigidity, (ii) its upstream industries have smaller information rigidity, and (iii) its input goods are also used by less informed industries. I quantify information heterogeneity across industries with a standard text analysis method. Industries exhibit varying degrees of attention to economic outcomes correlated with their exposure to business cycle shocks. The calibrated model indicates that, in response to the COVID-19 shock, China should shift its tax burden to the utility, agriculture, and transport industries. The optimal taxation leads to a welfare increase of 0.7% for the U.S. and 1.23% for China in terms of consumption, compared to the equilibrium that assumes a homogeneous information structure

主讲人简介：Siyu Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include Macroeconomics, Public Finance, and Information Economics.