This testimony makes three main points. First, inheritances tend to exacerbate existing economic disparities and may be the most important barrier to intergenerational economic mobility. These tendencies are most pronounced at the top of the income distribution. While inherited income is...

This paper evaluates the welfare effects of the 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA86). In thirty years since its introduction, several studies have analysed the effects of TRA86. However, preference heterogeneity and non-market dimensions of welfare have not been taken into account. We propose an...

In this reply to a comment by Jentsch and Lunsford, we show that, when focusing on the relevant impulse responses, the evidence for economic and statistically significant macroeconomic effects of tax changes in Mertens and Ravn (2013) remains present for a range of asymptotically valid inference...

One important feature of tax reforms, in particular corporate tax reforms, is the uncertainty surrounding them. Are they going to be permanent or are they likely to be withdrawn by the subsequent government? The expected duration of the reform is important because it affects households' economic...

We assess the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality by applying a new decomposition method that allows us to disentangle mechanical effects due to changes in pre-tax incomes from direct effects of policy reforms. While tax reforms implemented under Democrat administrations, in...

In the context of the current tax policy debate in the United States, this paper reviews and discusses some of the main recurrent themes, as well as some of the most important tax reform proposals put forward over the past two decades. It finds that although there seems to be widespread...

#BlackTaxpayersMatterThe world has witnessed the brutal suffocation of George Floyd on a concrete sidewalk in Minneapolis. While this is but one more example of centuries of relentless violence against Black people, many are hoping that this tragic death might be a catalyst for meaningful...