IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kucebi/1804.html

Wealth Taxation And Wealth Accumulation: Theory And Evidence From Denmark

Author

Listed:
  • Katrine Jakobsen

    (CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

  • Kristian Jakobsen

    (Social Capital Fund)

  • Henrik Kleven

    (Princeton University and NBER)

  • Gabriel Zucman

    (UC Berkeley and NBER)

Abstract

Using administrative wealth records from Denmark, we study the effects of wealth taxes on wealth accumulation. Denmark used to impose one of the world�s highest marginal tax rates on wealth, but this tax was drastically reduced and ultimately abolished between 1989 and 1997. Due to the specific design of the wealth tax, these changes provide a compelling quasi-experiment for understanding behavioral responses among the wealthiest segments of the population. We find clear reduced-form effects of wealth taxes in the short and medium run, with larger effects on the very wealthy than on the moderately wealthy. We develop a simple lifecycle model with utility of residual wealth (bequests) allowing us to interpret the evidence in terms of structural primitives. We calibrate the model to the quasi-experimental moments and simulate the model forward to estimate the long-run effect of wealth taxes on wealth accumulation. Our simulations show that the long-run elasticity of wealth with respect to the net-of-tax return is sizeable at the top of distribution. Our paper provides the type of evidence needed to assess optimal capital taxation.

Suggested Citation

  • Katrine Jakobsen & Kristian Jakobsen & Henrik Kleven & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Wealth Taxation And Wealth Accumulation: Theory And Evidence From Denmark," CEBI working paper series 18-04, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:kucebi:1804
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.ku.dk/cebi/publikationer/working-papers/CEBI-WP-04-18.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

    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:kud:kucebi:1804. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Thomas Hoffmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebkudk.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.