This paper reconsiders the effects of dividend taxation. Particular attention is paid to the form of the “equity trap”, that is, the extent to which cash paid to the shareholders must be taxed as dividends. Our analysis shows that Sinn’s (1991) criticism of the well-known King and...

The objective of this paper is to describe two new administrative Swedish databases, referred to as the Belinda databases. Together, these databases contain the most detailed individual-level data on estates, bequests, and inheritances currently available. We present descriptive statistics for...

We extend a standard taxable income model with its typical functional-form assumptions to account for nonlinear budget sets. We propose a new method to estimate a taxable income elasticity that is more policy relevant than the typically estimated elasticity based on linearized budget sets. Using...

This paper estimates the role of both tax and non-tax determinants in the choice in Sweden to be a closely-held corporation vs. a proprietorship, using individual data for 2004 to 2008 on owners of closely-held businesses. While lower-income individuals face relatively neutral incentives, higher...

This essay contributes in two ways to the literature on the effects of economic circumstances on health. First, it deals with reverse causality and omitted variable bias by exploiting exogenous variation in inherited wealth generated by the unexpected repeal of the Swedish inheritance tax....

This paper examines how the distortions caused by dividend taxation depend on whether or not shareholders can recover their original equity injections without being subject to the dividend tax. We point out the alternative assumptions in the literature on this, and we compare two different tax...

This paper studies the evolution of the modern Swedish inheritance taxation from its introduction in 1885 to its abolishment in 2004. A thorough description is offered of the basic principles of the tax, including underlying ideas and ambitions, tax schedules, and rules concerning valuation of...

I develop a structural method for evaluating labor supply in nonlinear budget sets that does not require any distributional assumptions. The model only requires that preferences are convex on the budget frontier. It can be extended to account for features such as fixed costs of work and the...

In this paper I perform numerical simulations of the discrete model of optimal income taxation employing a large number of taxpayer types. Moreover, I indicate how the results depend on the number of types used to represent the wage distribution. Finally, I compare simulations of the continuous...

This report provides an extensive overview of the history of the Swedish pension system. Starting with the implementation of the world's first universal public pension system in 1913, the report discusses the political as well as the economic background to each major public pension reform up...