Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points? Saez, Emmanuel
American economic journal. Economic policy,
08/2010, Letnik:
2, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This paper uses tax return data to analyze bunching at the kink points of the US income tax schedule. We estimate the compensated elasticity of reported income with respect to (one minus) the ...marginal tax rate using bunching evidence. We find clear evidence of bunching around the first kink point of the Earned Income Tax Credit but concentrated solely among the self-employed. A simple tax evasion model can account for those results. We find evidence of bunching at the threshold of the first income tax bracket where tax liability starts but no evidence of bunching at any other kink point.
This paper combines income tax returns with macroeconomic household balance sheets to estimate the distribution of 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 successfully test our capitalization method in three micro datasets where we can observe both income and wealth: the Survey of Consumer Finance, linked estate and income tax returns, and foundations’ tax records. We find that wealth concentration was high in the beginning of the twentieth century, fell from 1929 to 1978, and has continuously increased since then. The top 0.1% wealth share has risen from 7% in 1978 to 22% in 2012, a level almost as high as in 1929. Top wealth-holders are younger today than in the 1960s and earn a higher fraction of the economy’s labor income. The bottom 90% wealth share first increased up to the mid-1980s and then steadily declined. The increase in wealth inequality in recent decades is due to the upsurge of top incomes combined with an increase in saving rate inequality. We explain how our findings can be reconciled with Survey of Consumer Finances and estate tax data.
Inequality in the long run Piketty, Thomas; Saez, Emmanuel
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
05/2014, Letnik:
344, Številka:
6186
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This Review presents basic facts regarding the long-run evolution of income and wealth inequality in Europe and the United States. Income and wealth inequality was very high a century ago, ...particularly in Europe, but dropped dramatically in the first half of the 20th century. Income inequality has surged back in the United States since the 1970s so that the United States is much more unequal than Europe today. We discuss possible interpretations and lessons for the future.
We analyze the effects of top tax rates on international migration of football players in 14 European countries since 1985. Both country case studies and multinomial regressions show evidence of ...strong mobility responses to tax rates, with an elasticity of the number of foreign (domestic) players to the net-of-tax rate around one (around 0.15). We also find evidence of sorting effects (low taxes attract high-ability players who displace low-ability players) and displacement effects (low taxes on foreigners displace domestic players). Those results can be rationalized in a simple model of migration and taxation with rigid labor demand.
We study the effect of disclosing information on peers' salaries on workers' job satisfaction and job search intentions. A randomly chosen subset of University of California employees was informed ...about a new website listing the pay of University employees. All employees were then surveyed about their job satisfaction and job search intentions. Workers with salaries below the median for their pay unit and occupation report lower pay and job satisfaction and a significant increase in the likelihood of looking for a new job. Above-median earners are unaffected. Differences in pay rank matter more than differences in pay levels. (JEL I23, J28, J31, J64)
This paper presents new findings on global inequality dynamics from the World Wealth and Income Database (WID.world), with particular emphasis on the contrast between the trends observed in the ...United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom. We observe rising top income and wealth shares in nearly all countries in recent decades. But the magnitude of the increase varies substantially, thereby suggesting that different country-specific policies and institutions matter considerably. Long-run wealth inequality dynamics appear to be highly unstable. We stress the need for more democratic transparency on income and wealth dynamics and better access to administrative and financial data.
We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on US income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. ...The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only slightly moves tax and transfer policy preferences. An exception is the estate tax—informing respondents of the small share of decedents who pay it doubles support for it. The small effects for all other policies can be partially explained by respondents' low trust in government and a disconnect between concerns about social issues and the public policies meant to address them.
This paper presents new findings from the World Top Incomes Database and discusses some of their policy implications. In particular, the paper provides updated top income series for the United ...States—including new estimates through 2010, showing a strong rebound of the top 1 percent income share, following the 2008-09 sharp fall. It also presents updated income series for other developed countries (including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan) and new series on wealth-income ratios. In light of this extended set of country series, the paper analyzes the relative importance of market and institutional forces in explaining observed cross-country trends, and the likely impact of the Great recession on these long-term evolutions. It discusses the policy implications of the findings, both in terms of optimal tax policy and regarding the interplay between inequality and macroeconomic fragility.
Top Incomes in the Long Run of History Atkinson, Anthony B.; Piketty, Thomas; Saez, Emmanuel
Journal of economic literature,
03/2011, Letnik:
49, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the long run for more than twenty countries using income tax statistics. Top incomes represent a small share of the population ...but a very significant share of total income and total taxes paid. Hence, aggregate economic growth per capita and Gini inequality indexes are sensitive to excluding or including top incomes. We discuss the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series, including income definition and comparability over time and across countries, tax avoidance, and tax evasion. We provide a summary of the key empirical findings. Most countries experience a dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the twentieth century in general due to shocks to top capital incomes during the wars and depression shocks. Top income shares do not recover in the immediate postwar decades. However, over the last thirty years, top income shares have increased substantially in English speaking countries and in India and China but not in continental European countries or Japan. This increase is due in part to an unprecedented surge in top wage incomes. As a result, wage income comprises a larger fraction of top incomes than in the past. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and empirical models that have been proposed to account for the facts and the main questions that remain open.
PDF
