This paper examines the effects of permanently repealing the estate tax on capital accumulation and output using two different approaches to modeling the economic distortions resulting from the estate tax. In the first approach, the estate tax acts as an additional tax on capital income. The...

Recent legislation has left a gift and estate tax that will apply to far fewer than 1% of all decedents each year. This Article, prepared for a symposium on Tax Advice for the Second Obama Administration, argues that the estate tax has become largely irrelevant, except ironically as a spur to...

Inequality has been increasing in the United States. We should care about this increase because inequality contributes to a variety of adverse social consequences that persist across generations. There is also substantial empirical evidence that inequality has a long-term negative impact on...

Aristotle defined a "constitution" as a society's distribution of wealth and power. Because the American constitution focuses on public power, most Americans tend not to see their political economy as a constitutional issue. In other words, there is an "economic constitution" as well as a legal...

Strong bequest motives can explain low retirement spending, but so equally can strong precautionary motives. Given this identification problem, the recent tradition has been largely to ignore bequest motives. We develop a rich model of spending in retirement that allows for both motives, and...