IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/man/sespap/2105.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marginal Tax Rates and Income in the Long Run: Evidence from a Structural Estimation

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Macnamara
  • Myroslav Pidkuyko
  • Raffaele Rossi

Abstract

We estimate the long-run response of income to marginal tax rate changes within a life-cycle model of the US. We find statistically significant long-run tax elasticities of income of around 0.66 for all taxpayers. Estimated elasticities are largest for the richest 1% but are also positive for other income groups. In our economy, the most productive agents obtain higher returns on their wealth by choosing to be entrepreneurs. This crucial feature, in combination with earnings risk and tax progressivity, increases the incentives to save and invest for the richest, high-return entrepreneurs, thus amplifying their income responses to marginal tax changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Macnamara & Myroslav Pidkuyko & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income in the Long Run: Evidence from a Structural Estimation," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2105, Economics, The University of Manchester, revised Jan 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:man:sespap:2105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/soss/economics/discussionpapers/EDP-2105.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alejandro Badel & Mark Huggett & Wenlan Luo, 2020. "Taxing Top Earners: a Human Capital Perspective," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(629), pages 1200-1225.
    2. Oleg Itskhoki & Benjamin Moll, 2019. "Optimal Development Policies With Financial Frictions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(1), pages 139-173, January.
    3. Karel Mertens & José Luis Montiel Olea, 2018. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(4), pages 1803-1884.
    4. Òscar Jordà & Katharina Knoll & Dmitry Kuvshinov & Moritz Schularick & Alan M Taylor, 2019. "The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1225-1298.
    5. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Shenghao Zhu, 2011. "The Distribution of Wealth and Fiscal Policy in Economies With Finitely Lived Agents," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 123-157, January.
    6. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    7. Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Productivity Losses from Financial Frictions: Can Self-Financing Undo Capital Misallocation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3186-3221, October.
    8. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    9. Sergio Ocampo & Gueorgui Kambourov & Daphne Chen & Burhanettin Kuruscu & Fatih Guvenen, 2017. "Use It or Lose It: Efficiency Gains from Wealth Taxation," 2017 Meeting Papers 913, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2017. "Nonlinear Effects of Taxation on Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 265-291.
    11. Nezih Guner & Remzi Kaygusuz & Gustavo Ventura, 2014. "Income Taxation of U.S. Households: Facts and Parametric Estimates," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 559-581, October.
    12. Guner, Nezih & Lopez-Daneri, Martin & Ventura, Gustavo, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Government revenues: Higher taxes at the top?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 69-85.
    13. Matthew Smith & Danny Yagan & Owen Zidar & Eric Zwick, 2019. "Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 134(4), pages 1675-1745.
    14. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2014. "The Incentive Effects of Marginal Tax Rates: Evidence from the Interwar Era," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 242-281, August.
    15. Karen Kopecky & Richard Suen, 2010. "Finite State Markov-chain Approximations to Highly Persistent Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 701-714, July.
    16. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    17. Juan Carlos Conesa & Sagiri Kitao & Dirk Krueger, 2009. "Taxing Capital? Not a Bad Idea after All!," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 25-48, March.
    18. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2020. "Trends in US Income and Wealth Inequality: Revising After the Revisionists," Working Papers halshs-03022102, HAL.
    19. Robert J. Barro & Charles J. Redlick, 2011. "Macroeconomic Effects From Government Purchases and Taxes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 51-102.
    20. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    21. Greg Kaplan, 2012. "Inequality and the life cycle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(3), pages 471-525, November.
    22. James Cloyne, 2013. "Discretionary Tax Changes and the Macroeconomy: New Narrative Evidence from the United Kingdom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1507-1528, June.
    23. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    24. Laurent Bach & Laurent E. Calvet & Paolo Sodini, 2020. "Rich Pickings? Risk, Return, and Skill in Household Wealth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2703-2747, September.
    25. Nezih Guner & Remzi Kaygusuz & Gustavo Ventura, 2014. "Income Taxation of U.S. Households: Facts and Parametric Estimates," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 559-581, October.
    26. Gouveia, Miguel & Strauss, Robert P., 1994. "Effective Federal Individual Tax Functions: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(2), pages 317-339, June.
    27. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Mi Luo, 2019. "Wealth Distribution and Social Mobility in the US: A Quantitative Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1623-1647, May.
    28. Facundo Alvaredo & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts," Post-Print halshs-03342488, HAL.
    29. Gouveia, Miguel & Strauss, Robert P., 1994. "Effective Federal Individual Tax Functions: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 47(2), pages 317-39, June.
    30. Nathaniel Hendren, 2016. "The Policy Elasticity," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 51-89.
    31. Shinichi Nishiyama & Kent Smetters, 2005. "Consumption Taxes and Economic Efficiency with Idiosyncratic Wage Shocks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1088-1115, October.
    32. Nezih Guner & Remzi Kaygusuz & Gustavo Ventura, 2012. "Taxation and Household Labour Supply," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1113-1149.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luisa Fuster, 2022. "Macroeconomic and distributive effects of increasing taxes in Spain," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 613-648, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patrick Macnamara & Myroslav Pidkuyko & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "Marginal tax changes with risky investment," Working Papers 2116, Banco de España.
    2. Patrick Macnamara & Myroslav Pidkuyko & Raffaele Rossi, 2022. "Taxing Consumption in Unequal Economies," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2210, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    3. Aditya Aladangady & Etienne Gagnon & Benjamin K. Johannsen & William B. Peterman, 2021. "Macroeconomic Implications of Inequality and Income Risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Kaymak, Barıș & Leung, David & Poschke, Markus, 2020. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 13082, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Maren Froemel & Charles Gottlieb, 2021. "The Earned Income Tax Credit: Targeting the poor but crowding out wealth," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 193-227, February.
    6. Guner, Nezih & Lopez-Daneri, Martin & Ventura, Gustavo, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Government revenues: Higher taxes at the top?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 69-85.
    7. Juergen Jung & Chung Tran, 2023. "Health Risk, Insurance, and Optimal Progressive Income Taxation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2043-2097.
    8. Luisa Fuster, 2022. "Macroeconomic and distributive effects of increasing taxes in Spain," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 613-648, December.
    9. Sang Yoon (Tim) Lee, 2019. "Entrepreneurs, managers and inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 42-67, April.
    10. Musab Kurnaz & Terry A. Yip, 2022. "The Canadian income taxation: Statistical analysis and parametric estimates," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 272-311, February.
    11. Hans A. Holter & Dirk Krueger & Serhiy Stepanchuk, 2019. "How do tax progressivity and household heterogeneity affect Laffer curves?," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(4), pages 1317-1356, November.
    12. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones & Rory McGee, 2021. "Why Do Couples and Singles Save During Retirement?," Richmond Fed Economic Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 21(09), pages 1-65, May.
    13. Thomas Blanchet, 2022. "Uncovering the Dynamics of the Wealth Distribution," Working Papers hal-03865295, HAL.
    14. Nezih Guner & Martin Lopez-Daneri & Gustavo Ventura, 2023. "The Looming Fiscal Reckoning: Tax Distortions, Top Earners, and Revenues," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 50, pages 146-170, October.
    15. Vogel, Edgar, 2014. "Optimal Level of Government Debt: Matching Wealth Inequality and the Fiscal Sector," MEA discussion paper series 201410, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    16. Benjamin Moll & Lukasz Rachel & Pascual Restrepo, 2022. "Uneven Growth: Automation's Impact on Income and Wealth Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(6), pages 2645-2683, November.
    17. Blandin, Adam & Peterman, William B., 2019. "Taxing capital? The importance of how human capital is accumulated," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 482-508.
    18. Axelle Ferriere & Gaston Navarro, 2013. "The Heterogeneous Effects of Government Spending: It's All About Taxes," Working Papers 13-18, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    19. Jung, Juergen & Tran, Chung, 2022. "Social health insurance: A quantitative exploration," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    20. Brüggemann, Bettina & Yoo, Jinhyuk, 2015. "Aggregate and distributional effects of increasing taxes on top income earners," SAFE Working Paper Series 113, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:man:sespap:2105. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marianne Sensier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.