The article is concerned with understanding the impact of social preferences and wealth inequality on aggregate economic outcomes. We investigate how different manifestations of other-regarding preferences affect incentive contracts at the microeconomic level and how these in turn translate into...

This paper reviews the long run developments in the distribution of personal income and wealth. It also discusses suggested explanations for the observed patterns. We try to answer questions such as: What do we know, and how do we know, about the distribution of income and wealth over time? Are...

In this article we quantify the aggregate, distributional and welfare consequences of investment expensing and progressivity in Hall and Rabushka type of flat-tax reforms of the US economy. To do so we use a heterogeneous households model featuring both life cycle and dynastic elements as well...

Inequality in the distribution of wealth may be explained by differences in work effort, ability, savings behavior, rates of return, taxes and transfers, and gift and bequests (private transfers). The relative importance of these factors has important implications for public policy. Policy...

This paper studies the impact of the Protestant Reformation on wealth distribution and inequality in confessionally divided Germany, between 1400 and 1800. The Reformation expanded social welfare, but provided it in a particularistic way to insiders only. This gave Protestantism an ambiguous...