This paper combines income tax returns with Flow of Funds data to estimate the distribution of household wealth in the United States since 1913. We estimate wealth by capitalizing the incomes reported by individual taxpayers, accounting for assets that do not generate taxable income. We...

This article reviews the recent literature on the dynamics of global wealth inequality. I first reconcile available estimates of wealth inequality in the United States. Both surveys and tax data show that wealth inequality has increased dramatically since the 1980s, with a top 1% wealth share...

The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act reduced the US corporate tax rate and introduced provisions to curb profit shifting. We combine survey data, tax data, and firm financial statements to study the evolution of the geographical allocation of US firms' profits after the reform. The share of profits...

How has globalization affected the relative taxation of labor and capital, and why? To address this question we build and analyze a new database of effective macroeconomic tax rates covering 150 countries since 1965, constructed by combining national accounts data with government revenue...

We estimate and attempt to explain the evolution of the taxes paid by U.S. multinationals on their foreign profits since 1966. In the oil sector, taxes paid to oil-producing States have been contained, allowing U.S. firms to earn high after-tax returns. Foreign taxes fell abruptly after the...

We show that the fiscal authorities of high-tax countries can lack the incentives to combat profit shifting to tax havens. Instead, they have incentives to focus their enforcement efforts on relocating profits booked by multinationals in other high-tax countries, crowding out the enforcement on...

This paper studies tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution using IRS micro-data from (i) random audits, (ii) targeted enforcement activities, and (iii) operational audits. Drawing on this unique combination of data, we demonstrate empirically that random audits underestimate tax...

By combining new macroeconomic statistics on the activities of multinational companies with the national accounts of tax havens and the world's other countries, we estimate that close to 40% of multinational profits are shifted to low-tax countries each year. Profit shifting is highest among...

Using administrative wealth records from Denmark, we study the effects of wealth taxes on wealth accumulation. Denmark used to impose one of the world's highest marginal tax rates on wealth, but this tax was drastically reduced and ultimately abolished between 1989 and 1997. Due to the specific...

Drawing on newly published macroeconomic statistics, this paper estimates the amount of household wealth owned by each country in offshore tax havens. The equivalent of 10% of world GDP is held in tax havens globally, but this average masks a great deal of heterogeneity--from a few percent of...