This paper develops a political economy model that is consistent with the fact that democracies have a preference for increasing marginal tax rates on income. We present a model in which there is an exogenous set of political parties with preferences over the set of admissible tax schedules....

The popular support for progressive income taxation theorem (Maruhenda and Ortuno-Ortin, 1995) provides an important formalization of the intuition that a majority of relatively poor voters over rich ones leads to progressive income taxation. Yet, the theorem does not provide an equilibrium...

The "popular support for progressive income taxation theorem" (Maruhenda and Ortuno-Ortin, 1995) provides an important formalization of the intuition that a majority of relatively poor voters over rich ones leads to progressive income taxation. Yet, the theorem does not provide an equilibrium...

The case for progressive income taxation is often based on the classic result of Jakobsson, 1976 and Fellman, 1976, according to which progressive and only progressive income taxes - in the sense of increasing average tax rates on income - ensure a reduction in income inequality. This result has...

In a classic result, Jakobsson (1976) and Fellman (1976) showed that average-rate progressive, and only average-rate progressive, income taxes reduce income inequality. Carbonell-Nicolau and Llavador (2018) extended this result to the case of endogenous income, showing that marginal-rate...

The case for progressive income taxation is often based on the classic result of Jakobsson (1976) and Fellman (1976), according to which progressive and only progressive income taxes - in the sense of increasing average tax rates on income - ensure a reduction in income inequality. This result...