The almost continuous stagnation of the Japanese economy for the past two decades has had an adverse impact on Japanese households from at least three perspectives: A decline in the standard of living, an increase in risks and uncertainties relating to livelihood, employment, old age, etc., and...

For Piketty there are two laws of capitalism and one fundamental inequality which, taken together, drive us towards a world of increasing inequality. For what is left of the twenty-first century he foresees a less meritocratic society with an enhanced role for inherited wealth. In this article I...

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...

This paper estimates the marginal efficiency cost of redistribution (MECR) associated with a demogrant and an in-work benefit for the UK since 1979, taking account of extensive as well as intensive labour supply responses. The principal methodological advance in the paper is its greater...

The model describes a two person economy, in which one individual with positive exogenous income is altruist towards an individual with no income. The rich individual cares for her own social status. She evaluates her status by comparing disposable net cash incomes. When deciding on the size and...

This paper examines the effect of the intensity, timing, and persistence of personal history of mobility on individual support for redistribution. Using both rounds of Life in Transition Survey, we build measures of downward mobility for about 57 thousand individuals from 27 countries in Eastern...

Within a simple setup, we show that proportional taxation is implied by three properties: efficiency, symmetry, and monotonicity. Efficiency: redistribution has no cost. Symmetry: members of the society with the same performance obtain the same reward after redistribution. Monotonicity: whenever...

In this paper, we use tax and household survey data to assess the history of income distribution in Argentina since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1970s, the country experienced a fall in inequality in spite of lower income growth. Since then, inequality has generally increased...

Wie viel Umverteilung Bürgerinnen und Bürger in der Gesellschaft möchten, hängt von sozioökonomischen Faktoren und ihren Ansichten über Gerechtigkeit ab. Diese Studie, basierend auf einer in Schweden durchgeführten, repräsentativen Umfrage, bestätigt frühere Ergebnisse: Demnach nimmt...

The literature shows that when a society believes that wealth is determined by random “luck” rather than by merit, it demands more redistribution. Adverse shocks, like earthquakes, strengthen the belief that random “bad luck” can frustrate the outcomes achieved with merit. We...