We assess the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality by applying a new decomposition method allowing us to disentangle the policy effect from changing market incomes. Over the period 1979-2007, the cumulative policy effect aggravated inequality by increasing the income share of the top...

Education decisions determine a great part of future income. This paper argues that if education is financed by parents' current income a lump-sum tax reduces inequality if all parents have strict investment incentives. However, if some parents are indifferent there is a possible decrease in the...

We study the implications of limited commitment on education and tax policies chosen by benevolent governments. Individual wages are determined by both innate abilities and education levels. Consistent with real world practices, the government can decide to subsidize different levels of...

Why in some urban areas do rich and poor households cohabit at the community level while, in others, we observe a sorting by income? To answer this question I develop a two-community general equilibrium framework of school quality, residential choice and tax decision. The model predicts that in...

It has been argued that the potential gains of community-driven development (CDD) poverty programs are large as these can foster sustained poverty reduction. However, recent literature shows that community involvement can increase the risk of elite capture, particularly in more unequal...

In this paper we study the impact of tax-benefit systems on income inequality and work incentives across the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU). Using EUROMOD, the EU-wide tax-benefit microsimulation model, we disentangle the role of taxes, benefits and social insurance contributions in...

French retirees benefit from specific taxation decreases. These tax exemptions imply considerable public tax expenditures that may be unjustifiable in terms of equity. In this article, we examine the adequacy of tax arrangements for French retirees in the current context of public pension...

Over the past two decades, the United States federal income tax revenue has shown periods of increased volatility. Throughout the 1990s the growth rate of individual income taxes was between 5 and 10 percent, it has swung between H12 and +12 percent from 2000 to 2006. Meanwhile wage income has...

We study the extent to which people are misinformed about their relative position in the income distribution and the effects on preferences for redistribution of correcting faulty beliefs. We implement a tailor-made survey in Sweden and document that a vast majority of Swedes believe that they...

La provisión de bienes públicos es un mecanismo importante a través del cual la riqueza se puede distribuir en la sociedad. Este documentodesarrolla un modelo en el cual el capital público es a la vez un motor de crecimiento y un determinante de la distribución de lariqueza y de la...