Talk:Laffer curve

Terminology

What is a "stylized graph?" I have degrees in math and engineering, and have never heard of such a thing; neither does a Google search turn up any significant hits. Perhaps this should just read "graph?"

Reverse Laffer Curve section not about the Laffer Curve

The section titled "Reverse Laffer Curve" is not about the Laffer Curve. Just because Paul Krugman writes a single BLOG POST saying, "there is a kind of Laffer curve in which more is less and less is more" doesn't mean it rightfully belongs in an encyclopedia article. Can anyone find a mention of the "Reverse Laffer Curve" in any economics textbook or journal article anywhere? I highly doubt it. The term "Reverse Laffer Curve" was made up by a Wikipedian. Paul Krugman is right on the facts, but it more appropriately belongs in an article on Keynesian economic theory. --JHP (talk) 09:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if your objection is that it's a blog post or if it's because it's not about the Laffer Curve. If it's the latter, you are simply factually incorrect. He explicitly makes the comparison, and it has much more relevance to this article than the section about incarceration rates.Aapter (talk) 13:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

JHP you are right. This section has been deleted because:

- Krugman's blog article has nothing to do with the Laffer curve. The Laffer curve is about Taxable income elasticity (the relationship between tax rate and tax revenue raised) and Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" blog post is about government spending in a depressed economy when rates are close to zero. These are unrelated. Arthur Laffer's name is mentioned in a throw-away context. The Laffer curve is not mentioned.

- The term "Reverse Laffer curve" is OR and not used or even implied by Krugman.

Other points about this paragraph:

- The citation is a blog.

- The use of the phrase "Nobel Prize winning etc" in this context implies that Krugman's blog posts are of Nobel prize winning notability. This would seem unlikely.

Incidentally, I think the incarceration one should go too.

Gnomatic (talk)

Maximum

Says the article: "If both a 0% rate and 100% rate of taxation generate no revenue, it follows that there must exist at least one rate in between where tax revenue would be a maximum."

I think this is not worth mentionning (isn't that obvious? what does that imply?), and misleading: it's not because 0% and 100% rates generate no revenue that there is a maximum; it's because no rate can generate infinite revenue.

Am I completely missing something? Palpalpalpal (talk) 11:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The "Laffer curve" is just the Extreme Value Theorem of calclus applied to a postive, real, continuous function, zero at the endpoints. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.115.78.176 (talk) 00:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The graph represented is, IMHO, misleading respect to what is correctly said in the text: there exists infinite numbers of functions satisfying the definition. Another graph would be nice to have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.46.187.130 (talk) 16:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I've moved a graph up from the text. LK (talk) 10:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The article does not mention that the function must be continuous in order for Rolle's theorem to apply. It is not necessary that the function is continuous. Also bounded function might not have maxima and minima unless the domain is compact and the function is continuous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.252.136.205 (talk) 22:49, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Neo-laffer curve

Huh, I could have sworn File:Neo-Laffer_curve.svg appeared in this article at some point. Why was this removed? --163.1.211.97 (talk) 10:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

vague

"There is serious doubt about the relevance considering a single marginal tax rate."

The relevance of what? Of considering a marginal tax rate? Of the curve? Vague. Surely the curve. But needs clarity.