IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/34310083.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber

Author

Listed:
  • Mankiw, N. Gregory

Abstract

This essay discusses the policy debate concerning optimal taxation and the distribution of income. It begins with a brief overview of trends in income inequality, the leading hypothesis to explain these trends, and the distribution of the tax burden. It then considers the normative question of how the tax system should be designed. The conventional utilitarian framework is found to be wanting, as it leads to prescriptions that conflict with many individuals’ moral intuitions. The essay then explores an alternative normative framework, dubbed the Just Deserts Theory, according to which an individual’s compensation should reflect his or her social contribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Mankiw, N. Gregory, 2010. "Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber," Scholarly Articles 34310083, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:34310083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/34310083/w15846.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N Gregory Mankiw, 2009. "Smart Taxes: An Open Invitation to Join the Pigou Club," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 14-23.
    2. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2008. "Stature and Status: Height, Ability, and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 499-532, June.
    3. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2007. "Long-Run Changes in the Wage Structure: Narrowing, Widening, Polarizing," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(2), pages 135-168.
    4. Gerard Debreu, 1963. "On a Theorem of Scarf," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 30(3), pages 177-180.
    5. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl, 2010. "The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 155-176, February.
    6. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    7. Lester C. Thurow, 1971. "The Income Distribution as a Pure Public Good," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 85(2), pages 327-336.
    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. Cornelissen, Thomas & Himmler, Oliver & Koenig, Tobias, 2013. "Fairness spillovers—The case of taxation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 164-180.
    2. Galeotti, Fabio & Kline, Reuben & Orsini, Raimondello, 2017. "When foul play seems fair: Exploring the link between just deserts and honesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 451-467.
    3. Suresh Naidu & Yaw Nyarko & Shing-Yi Wang, 2016. "Monopsony Power in Migrant Labor Markets: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(6), pages 1735-1792.
    4. Kyle Glenn, 2021. "Social Labor vs Human Capital: Competing Theories of Skills," Working Papers 2115, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    5. Bartling, Björn & Cappelen, Alexander W & Ekström, Mathias & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2018. "Fairness in Winner-Take-All Markets," Working Paper Series 1214, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    6. Marika Karanassou & Héctor Sala, 2020. "Distributional Consequences of Technology, Trade Globalisation and Financialisation in the US," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(2), pages 275-303.
    7. Alexis Anagnostopoulos & Eva Carceles‐Poveda & Yair Tauman, 2021. "Value Preserving Welfare Weights For Social Optimization Problems," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1627-1653, November.
    8. François Maniquet, 2017. "De chacun selon ses capacités à chacun selon ses besoins, ou (même) plus, s’il le souhaite," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 68(1), pages 119-129.
    9. Sala, Hector, 2019. "A fresh look at fiscal redistribution and inequality in the US across electoral cycles," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 195-206.
    10. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Zuber, 2021. "Fair Utilitarianism," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 370-401, May.
    11. Marika Karanassou & Hector Sala, 2012. "Inequality and Employment Sensitivities to the Falling Labour Share," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(3), pages 343-376.
    12. Andrew Lister, 2017. "Markets, desert, and reciprocity," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 47-69, February.
    13. Granaglia, Elena, 2019. "Can market inequalities be justified? The intrinsic shortcomings of meritocracy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 284-290.
    14. Fleurbaey, Marc & Maniquet, François, 2015. "Optimal taxation theory and principles of fairness," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015005, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    15. Lockwood, Benjamin B. & Weinzierl, Matthew, 2016. "Positive and normative judgments implicit in U.S. tax policy, and the costs of unequal growth and recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 30-47.
    16. Eric Weyl & Charles Nathanson & Ben Lockwood, 2013. "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent," 2013 Meeting Papers 56, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Mihail Arandarenko & Dušan Pavlović, 2023. "Egalitarianism And Redistributive Reform In Serbia After 2000," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 68(237), pages 7-36, April – J.
    18. Florian H. Schneider & Fanny Brun & Roberto A. Weber, 2020. "Sorting and Wage Premiums in Immoral Work," CESifo Working Paper Series 8456, CESifo.
    19. Harju Jarkko, 2014. "Policy evaluation methods in tax research – new evidence and interpretations," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2014(1), pages 76-92, May.
    20. Benjamin B. Lockwood & Charles G. Nathanson & E. Glen Weyl, 2017. "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1635-1682.
    21. Stephan Zheng & Alexander Trott & Sunil Srinivasa & Nikhil Naik & Melvin Gruesbeck & David C. Parkes & Richard Socher, 2020. "The AI Economist: Improving Equality and Productivity with AI-Driven Tax Policies," Papers 2004.13332, arXiv.org.
    22. Robert Lepenies, 2014. "Economists as political philosophers : a critique of normative trade theory," RSCAS Working Papers 2014/11, European University Institute.
    23. Peter Backus & Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2014. "Is income redistribution a form of insurance, a public good or both?," Working Papers 2014/33, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).

    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. N Gregory Mankiw, 2010. "Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 285-298.
    2. N. Gregory Mankiw, 2013. "Defending the One Percent," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 21-34, Summer.
    3. Holger M. Mueller & Paige P. Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2015. "Wage Inequality and Firm Growth," LIS Working papers 632, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Philip Armour & Richard V. Burkhauser & Jeff Larrimore, 2016. "Using The Pareto Distribution To Improve Estimates Of Topcoded Earnings," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1263-1273, April.
    5. Claudine Gartenberg & Julie Wulf, 2020. "Competition and Pay Inequality Within and Between Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5925-5943, December.
    6. Stephanie Coffey & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 2021. "Towering Intellects? Sizing Up the Relationship Between Height and Academic Success," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 244, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    7. Micheli, Martin, 2015. "Does height affect labor supply? Implications of product variety and caloric needs," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112987, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Alan Fernihough & Mark E. McGovern, "undated". "Physical Stature Decline and the Health Status of the Elderly Population in England," PGDA Working Papers 11214, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    9. Ruggero Paladini, 2014. "Da Bentham alla tassazione ottimale," Public Finance Research Papers 2, Istituto di Economia e Finanza, DSGE, Sapienza University of Rome.
    10. Neymotin, Florence, 2010. "Linking self-esteem with the tendency to engage in financial planning," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 996-1007, December.
    11. Karimi, Seyed M. & Basu, Anirban, 2018. "The effect of prenatal exposure to Ramadan on children’s height," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 69-83.
    12. Bastani, Spencer & Karlsson, Kristina & Kolsrud, Jonas & Waldenström, Daniel, 2024. "The Capital Advantage: Comparing Returns to Ability in the Labor and Capital Markets," Working Papers in Economics and Statistics 1/2024, Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, Department of Economics and Statistics.
    13. Cavenaile, Laurent, 2021. "Offshoring, computerization, labor market polarization and top income inequality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    14. Paul Gift & Ryan M. Rodenberg, 2014. "Napoleon Complex," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 541-558, October.
    15. van der Laan, Gerard & Withagen, Cees, 2003. "Quasi-equilibrium in economies with infinite dimensional commodity spaces: a truncation approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 423-444, January.
    16. Rohan Best & Paul J. Burke, 2020. "Energy mix persistence and the effect of carbon pricing," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(3), pages 555-574, July.
    17. Parkash Chandler & Henry Tulkens & Jean-Pascal Ypersele & Stephane Willems, 2006. "The Kyoto Protocol: An Economic and Game Theoretic Interpretation," Springer Books, in: Parkash Chander & Jacques Drèze & C. Knox Lovell & Jack Mintz (ed.), Public goods, environmental externalities and fiscal competition, chapter 0, pages 195-215, Springer.
    18. Aurelie Charles & Damiano Sguotti, 2021. "Sustainable Earnings: How Can Herd Behavior in Financial Accumulation Feed into a Resilient Economic System?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-19, May.
    19. Matteo Iacoviello, 2008. "Household Debt and Income Inequality, 1963–2003," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 929-965, August.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:hrv:faseco:34310083. 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.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.