This article explores subjects in optimal income taxation characterized by recent research interest, practical importance in light of concerns about inequality, potential for misunderstanding, and prospects for advancement. Throughout, the analysis highlights paths for further investigation....

This paper investigates how tax rates and tax enforcement jointly impact fiscal capacity in low-income countries. We study a policy experiment in the D.R. Congo that randomly assigned 38,028 property owners to the status quo tax rate or to a rate reduction. This variation in tax liabilities...

The alcohol industry argues that alcohol excise taxes do not reduce heavy drinking because of substitutions to lower-cost products and that these taxes disproportionately burden low-income drinkers. Alternatively, some economists have argued that increases in alcohol excise taxes reduce heavy...

The post-COVID price surge has reignited interest in inflation's impact on American households. Even if anticipated and with full market adjustments, inflation affects households through its interaction with the fiscal system, which is the focus of this paper. Inflation affects households...

Using data on U.S. state and federal taxes and transfers over a quarter century, we estimate a regression model that yields the marginal effect of any shift of market income share from one quintile to another on the entire post tax, post-transfer income distribution. We identify exogenous income...

In 2021, the U.S. Congress temporarily expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers without a qualifying child (childless EITC), to help counteract the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lower-wage working adults. This expansion roughly tripled the maximum benefits for qualifying filers and...

An impulse response is the dynamic average effect of an intervention across horizons. We use the well-known Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to explore a response's heterogeneity over time and over states of the economy. This can be implemented with a simple extension to the usual local...

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in the landmark 2018 Wayfair case greatly improved state governments' ability to enforce collection of sales taxes on a destination basis. This has reduced state tax competition with an essentially-untaxed internet, but has brought traditional cross-border...

We study the history and geography of wealth accumulation in the US, using newly collected historical property tax records since the early 1800s. The US General Property Tax was a comprehensive tax on all types of property (real, personal, and financial), making it one of the first "wealth...

We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and employment) of families and children with very low incomes. We use a parameterized difference-in-differences...