Entitlement programs have become an increasing component of total government spending in the US over the last six decades. To some observers, this growth of the welfare state is excessive and unwarranted. To others, it is a welcome counter-acting force to the rapid increase in income inequality....

The purpose of the present note is to explore the structure of optimal income taxation/redistribution in an economy where the welfare of individuals depends in part on relative after-tax consumption, i.e., we specify individual welfare as a function of absolute and relative after-tax...

We explored two measures of inequality that described the full income distribution in cities. One measure is an income gini based on family incomes in 1929 for 33 cities and in 1933 for up to 48 cities in 1933 were spread throughout the country. We also estimated gini coefficients that made use...

This paper estimates the total value that individuals derive from their state's tax-and-transfer program, and shows how this value varies by income. The paper decomposes this total value into two components: redistributive value, which is due to predictable changes in income (and family...

Educational subsidies are frequently justified as a method of altering the income distribution. It is thus natural to compare education to other tax-transfer schemes designed to achieve distributional objectives. While equity-efficiency trade-offs are frequently discussed, they are rarely...

How big are the welfare losses from severe economic downturns, such as the U.S. Great Recession? How are those losses distributed across the population? In this paper we answer these questions using a canonical business cycle model featuring household income and wealth heterogeneity that matches...

In cross-sectional studies, countries with greater income inequality typically exhibit less support for government-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve along this pattern, a vicious cycle could form...

Germany, like many other countries, has undergone a series of pension reforms since the 1980s which generally decreased benefit generosity and increased the retirement age due to demographic pressures. This paper investigates whether these reforms have increased income and wealth inequality...