3,105 research outputs found
The Evolution of Top Incomes: A Historical and International Perspective
No full textThis paper summarizes the main findings of the recent studies that have constructed top income and wealth shares series over the century for a number of countries using tax statistics. Most countries experience a dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the century due to a precipitous drop in large wealth holdings during the wars and depression shocks. Top income shares do not recover in the immediate post war decades. However, over the last 30 years, top income shares have increased substantially in English speaking countries but not at all in continental Europe countries or Japan. This increase is due to an unprecedented surge in top wage incomes starting in the 1970s and accelerating in the 1990s. As a result, top wage earners have replaced capital income earners at the top of the income distribution in English speaking countries. We discuss the proposed explanations and the main questions that remain open.
Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data
No full textAlthough the vast majority of US research on trends in the inequality of family income is based on public-use March Current Population Survey (CPS) data, a new wave of research based on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax return data reports substantially higher levels of inequality and faster growing trends. We show that these apparently inconsistent estimates can largely be reconciled once one uses internal CPS data (which better captures the top of the income distribution than public-use CPS data) and defines the income distribution in the same way. Using internal CPS data for 1967–2006, we closely match the IRS data-based estimates of top income shares reported by Piketty and Saez (2003), with the exception of the share of the top 1 percent of the distribution during 1993–2000. Our results imply that, if inequality has increased substantially since 1993, the increase is confined to income changes for those in the top 1 percent of the distribution.
Recent trends in top income shares in the USA: Reconciling estimates from March CPS and IRS tax return data
No full textAlthough the majority of research on US income inequality trends is based on public-use March CPS data, a new wave of research using IRS tax return data reports substantially higher levels of inequality and faster growing trends. We show that these apparently inconsistent estimates are largely reconciled if the inequality measure and the income distribution are defined in the same way. Using internal CPS data for 1967–2006, we closely match IRS data-based estimates of top income shares reported by Piketty and Saez (2003). Our results imply that any inequality increases since 1993 are concentrated among the top 1 percent of the distribution.US Income Inequality, Top income shares, March CPS, IRS tax return data.
Emmanuel Saez: 2009 John Bates Clark Medalist
No full text Emmanuel Saez, winner of the 2009 John Bates Clark Medal, has distinguished himself by making fundamental contributions concerning critical theoretical and empirical issues within the field of public economics. He is one of those exceptional scholars whose work reflects a broad and thoroughly integrated vision. In carefully and creatively implementing that vision, he has led a remarkable resurgence of interest in tax policy research over the last decade. Emmanuel's work can be divided into five areas: the theory of optimal taxes and transfers; the measurement of income and wealth distributions; the measurement of behavioral responses to personal taxation; the taxation of corporate dividends; and retirement saving. A great deal of his work is closely interrelated across these topics, which makes the whole considerably greater than the sum of the parts. In effect, he has bridged the chasm between theory and practical policymaking by attacking the policy design problem from both sides at once. This article provides a survey of Emmanuel's work. </jats:p
Earnings determination and taxes: evidence from a cohort based payroll tax reform in Greece
No full textEine Welt voller Möglichkeiten: Rezension zu "Der Triumph der Ungerechtigkeit: Steuern und Ungleichheit im 21. Jahrhundert" von Emmanuel Saez und Gabriel Zucman
No full textEmmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman: Der Triumph der Ungerechtigkeit - Steuern und Ungleichheit im 21. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2020. 978-3-518-42935-
Emmanuel Kutik
No full textabstract: Emmanuel Kutik was almost eight years old when he left his home. He walked for three months and traveled with fifty people.
“Lost Boys Found” is an ongoing, interdisciplinary project that is collecting, recording and archiving the oral histories of the Lost Boys/Girls of Sudan. The collection is a work-in-progress, seeking to record the oral history of as many Lost Boys/Girls as are willing, and will be used in a future book.Age: 23Region: BentiuThis picture and bio was donated to the Lost Boys Found project from The Arizona Lost Boys Cente
A "Second Opinion" on the Economic Health of the American Middle Class
No full textResearchers considering levels and trends in the resources available to the middle class traditionally measure the pre-tax cash income of either tax units or households. In this paper, we demonstrate that this choice carries significant implications for assessing income trends. Focusing on tax units rather than households greatly reduces measured growth in middle class income. Furthermore, excluding the effect of taxes and the value of in-kind benefits further reduces observed improvements in the resources of the middle class. Finally, we show how these distinctions change the observed distribution of benefits from the tax exclusion of employer provided health insurance.
Reported Incomes and Marginal Tax Rates, 1960-2000: Evidence and Policy Implications
No full textThis paper use income tax return data from 1960 to 2000 to analyze the link between reported incomes and marginal tax rates. Only the top 1% incomes show evidence of behavioral responses to taxation. The data displays striking heterogeneity in the size of responses to tax changes overtime, with no response either short-term or long-term for the very large Kennedy top rate cuts in the early1960s, and striking evidence of responses, at least in the short-term, to the tax changes since the 1980s. The 1980s tax cuts generated a surge in business income reported by high income individual taxpayers due to a shift away from the corporate sector, and the disappearance of business losses for tax avoidance. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 and the recent 1993 tax increase generated large short-term responses of wages and salaries reported by top income earners, most likely due to re-timing in compensation to take advantage of the tax changes. However, it is unlikely that the extraordinary trend upward of the shares of total wages accruing to top wage income earners, which started in the 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s and especially the late 1990s, can be explained solely by the evolution of marginal tax rates.
- …
