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Do higher income taxes on top earners trickle down? A local labor markets approach

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  • Kindsgrab, Paul M.

Abstract

This paper measures how much higher income taxes on U.S. top 1% earners “trickle down” and reduce other workers’ wages via geographically concentrated spillovers. Using an exposure design that combines time-series variation in the federal marginal tax rate for top 1% earners with cross-sectional variation in the top 1% income share across local labor markets, I find very little evidence of local trickle-down effects. The point estimates imply zero local trickle-down effects. At conventional levels of confidence, the estimates are statistically inconsistent with a one percentage point increase in the top tax rate reducing worker wages by more than −0.08%. These results undermine claims that trickle-down effects should be an important consideration in setting top tax rates.

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  • Kindsgrab, Paul M., 2022. "Do higher income taxes on top earners trickle down? A local labor markets approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:214:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722000913
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104689
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Top Income Taxation; Tax Incidence; Optimal Taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

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