The objective of this paper is two-fold. First, we describe and compare the gift and bequest (estate) tax systems in the United States and Japan. Second, we use tax data to estimate the magnitude of inter-generational transfers. The magnitude of intergenerational transfers provides aid...

The objective of this paper is two-fold. First, we describe and compare the gift and bequest (estate) tax systems in the United States and Japan. Second, we use tax data to estimate the magnitude of intergenerational transfers. The magnitude of intergenerational transfers provides aid in...

This paper explores economic, political, and practical issues that arise in the design of environmental taxes. The observed dearth of Pigouvian taxes may result from perceived political or practical problems in the design of such taxes. The author provides a taxonomy for assessing design issues:...

The federal personal income tax has six statutory marginal tax rates: zero, 15 percent, 28 percent, 31 percent, 36 percent, and 39.6 percent. Because of the design of certain provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, an effective marginal tax rate may not always correspond to the statutory...

Discusses why the "lifetime" approach is not currently viable to measure distribution and how to judge the suitability of various annual approaches.

The four major banks (BOJ, FRB, BOE and ECB) have adopted unconventional monetary policy, or broadly-defined quantitative easing (QE), in the last several years. The broadly-defined QE can be classified into comprehensive easing (CE) and pure-QE. The former is aimed at purchasing assets of...