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Presidential Address 2019: How Should Tax Progressivity Respond to Rising Income Inequality?

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  • Jonathan Heathcote
  • Kjetil Storesletten
  • Giovanni L Violante

Abstract

We address the question in the title in a heterogeneous-agent incomplete-market model featuring exogenous idiosyncratic risk, endogenous skill investment, and flexible labor supply. The tax and transfer schedule is restricted to being log-linear in income, a good description of the US system. Rising inequality is modeled as a combination of skill-biased technical change and growth in residual wage dispersion. When facing shifts in the income distribution like those observed in the United States, a utilitarian planner chooses higher progressivity in response to larger residual inequality but lower progressivity in response to widening skill price dispersion reflecting technical change. Overall, optimal progressivity is approximately unchanged between 1980 and 2016. We document that the progressivity of the actual US tax and transfer system has similarly changed little since 1980, in line with the model prescription.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L Violante, 2020. "Presidential Address 2019: How Should Tax Progressivity Respond to Rising Income Inequality?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2715-2754.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:18:y:2020:i:6:p:2715-2754.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvaa050
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    Cited by:

    1. Ferey, Antoine & Haufler, Andreas & Perroni, Carlo, 2023. "Incentives, globalization, and redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    2. Felix Bierbrauer & Aleh Tsyvinski & Nicolas Werquin, 2021. "Taxes and Turnout: When the Decisive Voter Stays at Home," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 071, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    3. Erik Hurst & Patrick J. Kehoe & Elena Pastorino & Thomas Winberry, 2022. "The Distributional Impact of the Minimum Wage in the Short and Long Run," NBER Working Papers 30294, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jang, Youngsoo, 2021. "Democracy or Optimal Policy: Income Tax Decisions without Commitment," MPRA Paper 110475, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jonas Loebbing, 2023. "Redistributive Income Taxation with Directed Technical Change," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 420, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. David W. Berger & Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Minimum Wages, Efficiency and Welfare," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 058, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Jonas Loebbing, 2020. "Redistributive Income Taxation with Directed Technical Change," CESifo Working Paper Series 8743, CESifo.
    8. Sandro Ambuehl & Sebastian Blesse & Philipp Doerrenberg & Christoph Feldhaus & Axel Ockenfels, 2023. "Politicians' Social Welfare Criteria: An Experiment with German Legislators," CESifo Working Paper Series 10329, CESifo.
    9. Martin F. Hellwig, 2021. "Social Choice in Large Populations with Single-Peaked Preferences," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2021_18, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    10. João Tovar Jalles & Georgios Karras, 2023. "Tax Progressivity and Output: Evidence from OECD countries," Working Papers REM 2023/0293, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    11. Alessandra Pizzo, 2023. "The welfare effects of tax progressivity with frictional labor markets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 49, pages 123-146, July.
    12. Ambuehl, Sandro & Blesse, Sebastian & Doerrenberg, Philipp & Feldhaus, Christoph & Ockenfels, Axel, 2023. "Politicians' social welfare criteria - An experiment with German legislators," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-013, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Felix Bierbrauer & Aleh Tsyvinski & Nicolas Werquin, 2021. "Taxes and Turnout: When the Decisive Voter Stays at Home," CESifo Working Paper Series 8954, CESifo.
    14. Jang, Youngsoo, 2021. "Democracy or Optimal Policy: Income Tax Decisions without Commitment," MPRA Paper 110466, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Brendler, Pavel, 2023. "Rising earnings inequality and optimal income tax and social security policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 35-52.
    16. Artige, Lionel & Cavenaile, Laurent, 2023. "Public education expenditures, growth and income inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    17. Bierbrauer, Felix & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Werquin, Nicolas, 2021. "Taxes and Turnout: When the decisive voter stays at home," CEPR Discussion Papers 15928, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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