Contrary to frequent recommendations of the public finance literature and international institutions, a persistently high tax wedge on labor is observed in Europe. At the same time, the scope for shifting taxes from labor to more growth-friendly revenue sources appears underused in many European...

Auch in der Theorie sind die Einkommens- und Vermögensbegriffe nicht immer von Erkenntnisprinzipien, sondern von politischen Absichten geprägt. Um dieses Fehlverständnis zu entlarven, bedürfen die Begriffe neuer theoretischer Grundlegung. Diese Zielsetzung verfolgt die vorliegende Studie....

"Entrepreneurship is a key determinant of investment, saving, and wealth inequality. We study the aggregate and distributional effects of several tax reforms in a model that recognizes this key role and that matches the large wealth inequality observed in the U.S. data. The aggregate effects of...

Comprehensive wealth taxes offer the possibility of reducing inequality while raising revenue. However, implementing comprehensive wealth taxes can be difficult, especially in emerging economies where administrative and political limitations are often substantial. This Article offers an...

Placed at each end of the long spectrum of responses to Thomas Piketty’s best seller (in its admirable 2014 English translation by Arthur Goldhammer) are those of Paul Krugman and Deirdre McCloskey. (I omit the responses of Tea Party right-wing nutters. The book was published in French in 2013...

Recent books by Thomas Piketty (Piketty, 2014) and Anthony Atkinson (Atkinson, 2015) have brought the annual wealth tax back on the policy agenda. Both authors suggest using the annual wealth tax to supplement the redistributional effects of the income tax, assigning it a role as a...

Tax reforms are crucial to promoting inclusive growth in India. The replacement of a myriad of consumption taxes by a Goods and Services Tax (GST) will boost India's competitiveness, investment, job creation and tax compliance. The potential to raise additional revenue from taxes on goods and...

This paper analyzes mobility responses to a large, regressive local income tax cut benefiting the top 1% in the Swiss Canton of Obwalden in 2006. DiD estimations comparing Obwalden with neighboring cantons confirm that the reform was successful in increasing the share of rich taxpayers in the...