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Entrepreneurship, Inequality, and Taxation

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Césaire Assah Meh

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Paper provided by Bank of Canada in its series Working Papers with number 02-14.

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Length: 56 pages Abstract: This paper confirms the conjecture that the evaluation of tax policy leads to very different conclusions once the role of entrepreneurs is considered. Contrary to previous literature, the author finds that switching from a progressive to a proportional income tax system has a negligible effect on wealth inequality in the United States. This surprising result arises because entrepreneurial activities moderate the effects of the policy change on the wealth distribution. The author shows that proportional income tax reform increases entrepreneurial investment and savings by reducing the marginal income tax rates paid by entrepreneurs. Within the model, an increase in business investment implies a higher demand for labour, which raises the wage rate of workers and drives down the average return to entrepreneurial activities. This general-equilibrium feedback narrows the income and savings gap between workers and entrepreneurs, and, in turn, leads to a reduction in income and wealth inequality. While the elimination of progressive income taxation increases entrepreneurial investments, it has almost no effect on the number of entrepreneurs, as the costs of entrepreneurial activities rise with increasing wages. The model is also able to account for the substantial share of income and wealth held by entrepreneurs, the high savings rate of entrepreneurs relative to workers, and the high concentration of wealth observed in the data.
Date of creation: 2002
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Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:02-14

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Keywords: Fiscal policy; Economic models;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

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  1. Robert Carroll & Douglas Holtz-Eakin & Mark Rider & Harvey S. Rosen, 1998. "Entrepreneurs, Income Taxes, and Investment," NBER Working Papers 6374, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  4. Diaz-Gimenez, Javier & Prescott, Edward C. & Fitzgerald, Terry & Alvarez, Fernando, 1992. "Banking in computable general equilibrium economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 533-559. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Huggett, Mark, 1996. "Wealth distribution in life-cycle economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 469-494, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & David Joulfaian & Harvey S. Rosen, 1994. "Entrepreneurial Decisions and Liquidity Constraints," NBER Working Papers 4526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. David Altig & Charles T. Carlstrom, 1999. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income Inequality in a Life-Cycle Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1197-1215, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Kanbur, S M Ravi, 1982. "Entrepreneurial Risk Taking, Inequality, and Public Policy: An Application of Inequality Decomposition Analysis to the General Equilibrium Effects of Progressive Taxation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(1), pages 1-21, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(2), pages 309-40, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. Quadrini, Vincenzo, 1999. "The Importance of Entrepreneurship for Wealth Concentration and Mobility," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(1), pages 1-19, March.
  13. Steven Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," NBER Working Papers 2387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  15. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Joulfaian, David & Rosen, Harvey S, 1994. "Sticking It Out: Entrepreneurial Survival and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 53-75, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. William M. Gentry & R. Glenn Hubbard, 2000. "Tax Policy and Entrepreneurial Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 283-287, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Evans, David S & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1989. "An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 808-27, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Poterba, James M., 1998. "The rate of return to corporate capital and factor shares: new estimates using revised national income accounts and capital stock data," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 211-246, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1993. "Uninsured idiosyncratic risk and aggregate saving," Working Papers 502, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  22. Trostel, Philip A, 1993. "The Effect of Taxation on Human Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 327-50, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Marco Cagetti & Mariacristina De Nardi, 2004. "Taxation, entrepreneurship and wealth," Working Papers 632, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Yaz Terajima, 2006. "Education and Self-Employment: Changes in Earnings and Wealth Inequality," Working Papers 06-40, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
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