The origins of fiscal capacity have traditionally been linked to warfare and democratization. However, non-democratic states also invest in fiscal capacity, even in times of peace. In fact, the majority of income taxes-a cornerstone of government finance-were introduced by non-democratic states...

The authors investigate the desirability of income taxes when the objective is to mitigate wasteful conspicuous consumption generated by people's status-seeking behavior. They consider the joint role of pre-tax wage inequality and of social norms determining how social status is assigned. They...

The authors investigate the desirability of income taxes when the objective is to mitigate wasteful conspicuous consumption generated by people's status-seeking behavior. They consider the joint role of pre-tax wage inequality and of social norms determining how social status is assigned. They...

We decompose the redistributive effect of direct taxes into vertical, horizontal, and reranking components applying the methods of Urban and Lambert (Public Finance Review, 2008). In the first such application to the UK, and using yearly data covering 1977-2020, we find that redistributive...