Capital Income Taxation and Risk-Taking under Prospect Theory: The Continuous Distribution Case
Hlouskova, Jaroslava; Mikocziova, Jana; Sivak, Rudolf; Tsigaris, Peter
Year: 2014 Volume: 64 Issue: 5 Pages: 374-391
Abstract: This study verifies whether the results of proportional capital income taxation on the risk-taking of a loss-averse investor will still hold when the return of a risky asset has a general continuous distribution. We extend the previous literature, which assumes a binomial distribution of asset returns for a risky asset. We also show that under reasonable assumptions risk-taking is finite and positive and thus a loss-averse investor will not choose infinite leverage despite no regulations being applied. In addition, unlike in the expected utility model, the capital income tax increase does not stimulate risk-taking when the reference level is the initial wealth or the gross after the tax return from investing the initial wealth into the risk-free asset. Furthermore, when investors set their reference level at the gross (pre-tax) return from investing the initial wealth into the risk-free asset, they increase not only risk-taking but also their private risks as measured by the standard deviation of their after-tax final wealth, which is not the case in the expected utility model.
JEL classification: G11, H2
Keywords: risk-taking, portfolio choice, prospect theory, loss aversion, reference level, taxation
RePEc: http://ideas.repec.org/a/fau/fauart/v64y2014i5p374-391.html
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