In this paper we quantitatively characterize the optimal capital and labor income tax in an overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic, uninsurable income shocks, where households also differ permanently with respect to their ability to generate income. The welfare criterion we employ is...

This paper computes the optimal progressivity of the income tax code in a dynamic general equilibrium model with household heterogeneity in which uninsurable labour productivity risk gives rise to a nontrivial income and wealth distribution. A progressive tax system serves as a partial...

There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an "optimal" tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be neither efficient economically nor efficient at redistributing income. With a focus on personal income taxes, this paper reviews the political economics literature on tax...

In this paper we argue that very high marginal labor income tax rates are an effective tool for social insurance even when households have preferences with high labor supply elasticity, make dynamic savings decisions, and policies have general equilibrium effects. To make this point we construct...

We study the recent evolution of top incomes in Switzerland, analyzing both social security data on labor incomes and tax data on total income. The results show that in the last 20 years, the share of top incomes has risen, and the top 0.01 percent’s share even doubled, putting Switzerland...

A fundamental question in social sciences relates to the effect of wealth inequality on economic growth. Yet, in tackling the question, researchers have had to use income as a proxy for wealth. We derive a global measure of wealth inequality from Forbes magazine’s listing of billionaires and...

We examine the interaction between commodity taxes and parallel imports in a simple two-country model with imperfect competition. While governments determine non-cooperatively their commodity tax rate, the volume of parallel imports is determined endogenously by the retailing sector. We compare...

This paper documents the magnitude, pattern, and evolution of lifetime earnings inequality in Germany. Based on a large sample of earnings biographies from social security records, we show that the intra-generational distribution of lifetime earnings of male workers has a Gini coefficient around...

Disposable income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient and using Family Budget Survey data, increased very little, and by a similar amount, from 1989–93 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This surprising result is examined with an analysis of changes in the channels of...

We analyze the distribution and concentration of market incomes in Germany in the period 1992 to 2001 on the basis of an integrated data set of individual tax returns and the German Socio-Economic Panel. The unique feature of this integrated data set is that it encompasses the whole spectrum of...