Wealth inequality has become a heated political issue. Politicians claim that wealth concentration is rising and that people at the top are gaining at other people's expense. In this study, I examine problems with the measurement of wealth and discuss whether wealth inequality is an issue that...

The United States is currently trying to manage a fast-moving public health crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19). The economic and financial ramifications of the outbreak are serious. This Working Paper discusses these ramifications and identifies three interrelated but potentially...

Governments are increasingly turning to behavioral economics to inform policy design in areas like health care, the environment, and financial decision-making. Research shows that small behavioral interventions, referred to as “nudges,” often produce significant responses at a low cost. The...

The paper develops an analytical model that can be used to guide courts in the tax classification of day stock traders as investors or traders. Present tax laws do not clearly distinguish between a trader and an investor yet each classification has different tax consequences. Accordingly, the...

The Internal Revenue Code conditions important tax benefits for churches on their not intervening in political campaigns on behalf of particular candidates. Churches that violate this condition are not eligible to receive deductible contributions and may not be tax-exempt. The Internal Revenue...

This paper decomposes consumption tax revenues in OECD countries into the implicit tax rate (ITR) and consumption relative to GDP, to identify how economic downturns affect consumption tax revenues. It further considers the impact of changes in VAT efficiency and VAT rates on ITRs. The analysis...

When taxpayers underreport their income, understate their income, or fail to file their tax returns the government must spend money to audit taxpayers, to assess the tax, to collect the tax, and to borrow money to cover the lost revenue. The amount of such noncompliance with the tax laws is...

From the mid-1980s to early 1990s, Latin American tax policy provided rich lessons for other reforming countries. Meaningful innovations led also to perceptible revenue gains. Later in the 1990s, tax policies began to drift. Shining examples of fundamental reform seemed to lose their luster....

Should virtual income be subject to real world taxes? For most people, intuition suggests that the answer to this question is no, at least if the income is left in-world. However, virtual income can have significant real-world value, making it difficult to square intuition with existing tax...