Inequality has been increasing in the United States. We should care about this increase because inequality contributes to a variety of adverse social consequences that persist across generations. There is also substantial empirical evidence that inequality has a long-term negative impact on...

Aristotle defined a "constitution" as a society's distribution of wealth and power. Because the American constitution focuses on public power, most Americans tend not to see their political economy as a constitutional issue. In other words, there is an "economic constitution" as well as a legal...

On January 1, 2013, the federal estate tax regime in effect from 2001 to 2012 is scheduled to revert to its pre-2001 structure. A 35% rate will soar to a 55% rate. A $5 million exemption will plummet to $1 million. Some deductions and credits enacted in 2001 will disappear while others repealed...

Despite our founding vision as a land of opportunity, the United States ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries in economic equality and inter-generational mobility. Our tax code plays a key role. Inherited income is taxed at less than one-seventh the average tax rate on income...

This paper studies the evolution of Swedish inheritance taxation since the late nineteenth century to its abolition in 2004. Our contribution is twofold. First, we compute the annual effective inheritance tax rates for different sizes of bequests, if the inherited assets were family firm equity...

In a technological age, labor no longer plays the central role it once did in the nation's economy. Instead, automation has become more ubiquitous. This economic transformation has important and far-reaching consequences for the nation's tax system and, in particular, the means by which to fund...

A large literature has compared the efficiency properties of income and consumption tax bases. Its general conclusion is that a consumption base dominates an income base, except to the extent that practical compliance and administrative problems create opportunities for avoidance and evasion...

Wealth transfer taxes are a critical policy tool for mitigating economic inequality, including inequality of opportunity. They are also relatively efficient. This short essay summarizes why and how wealth transfer taxes should be strengthened. Reform options that our next President should...

September 8, 2016 will mark the one hundredth anniversary of the federal estate tax. As with many longstanding marriages, America's commitment to the estate tax has waxed and waned through the years. Our ardor built slowly, growing from the honeymoon years (impacting less than 1% of decedents...

This paper contributes to the recent debate on the tax privilege for business property introduced by the German Inheritance Tax Act of 2009. We shed light on the tax effects of the preferential treatment based on micro-level data of realized business transfers from the German Inheritance Tax...