Capital Income Taxation,Economic Growth and Heterogeneity in the Motivation to Give

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between capital income taxation and economic growth within an overlapping generations model when individuals may bequeath wealth. The altruistic concern is modeled as a synthesis of joy‐of‐giving and family altruism so that individuals may derive utility from the amount of bequest itself and by providing children with a disposable income later on in life. Using this framework, it is shown that, in contrast to the existing literature, increasing the capital income tax rate may well enhance growth under operative bequests.     

Public policy,dynamic status preferences,and wealth inequality

This paper studies the effect of productive government spending (taxation) on aggregate savings behavior and its consequences for the dynamics of wealth inequality, taking into consideration key behavioral changes that occur during the process of economic development. Substantial empirical evidence suggests that during this process agents' preferences toward status (positional consumption) evolves according to the average wealth of the society. The sources of wealth include private capital and productive public capital, the latter financed by a distortionary income tax. This dynamic status effect impacts peoples' responses to tax policy in ways which contrast with those of the standard neoclassical model. Specifically, we find that in response to an increase in the income tax, in economies with a strong (weak) enough dynamic status effect, savings and inequality increase (decrease). Incorporating the behavioral changes to fiscal policy expands the set of mechanisms available to explain the observed variations of savings and wealth distribution dynamics that cannot be attributed to technological or other structural factors.     

Envy and Inequality*

We present an overlapping generations economy, populated by heterogeneous agents who care about both consumption relative to others and the bequest they leave to their offspring. We show that saving and bequest rates vary across the income distribution, and we obtain several interesting results. First, envy reduces the steady‐state capital stock and increases the degree of inequality in consumption, capital ownership, and bequests. Second, if the bequest motive is sufficiently strong the equalizing effect of bequests disappears. Third, income inequality for a given cohort increases with age. Fourth, the distribution of inherited wealth becomes more unequal than that of wealth in general. Fifth, economic position becomes more persistent across generations.     

Capital income taxation when inherited wealth is not observable

This paper extends the Atkinson-Stiglitz model of direct and indirect taxation to a dynamic setting with two unobservable characteristics: productive ability and inherited wealth. Bequests are motivated by the ‘joy of giving’. A child’s inheritance is a random variable with a probability distribution that depends on his parent’s investment in a ‘bequest technology’. Public borrowing is assumed and implies the modified golden rule. We study the optimal tax policy when two instruments are available: a non-linear (wage) income tax and a proportional tax on capital income. We show that the second instrument ought, in general, to be used but that the tax rate is not necessarily positive. However, a positive tax rate is more likely when there is a positive correlation between inherited wealth and innate ability.     

Social status pursuit,distribution of bequests and inequality

The quest for social status modifies lifetime decisions and as a consequence, the trajectory of the overall economy. Focusing on the relative wealth dimension of social status, we build a two-period overlapping generations model with heterogeneous agents to investigate the effects of status quest on the evolution of bequest distribution and household inequality. We show that the bequest motive and the concern for social status not only increase the stationary level of capital but also enhance the household equality.     

Measuring the Level and Inequality of Wealth: An Application to China

We construct and compare three distinct measures of household asset wealth that complement traditional income‐ or expenditure‐based measures of socioeconomic status. We apply these measures to longitudinal household survey data from China and demonstrate that household asset wealth has been increasing over time, a theme consistent with many previous studies on the process of development in China. Unlike other studies that have shown rising income inequality over time, however, we show that asset wealth inequality has actually been declining in recent years, indicating widespread participation in the benefits of economic reforms. Furthermore, the evolution in the cumulative distribution of household welfare is such that social welfare has been increasing with the passage of time, despite rising inequality in the early years of the survey.     

Bequest Motives and the Demand for Life Insurance in East Germany

Empirical studies of household saving remain inconclusive about the role of bequest motives. This may be due to the diluting effect of different tax regimes across countries and time on estimates of bequest motives. Relative to market‐based economies, the former German Democratic Republic can be viewed as an experimental institutional setting where life‐insurance demand was not influenced by tax considerations. This allows isolating bequest motives from other life‐cycle and precautionary savings motives. Analyzing the demand for life insurance, we find a significantly higher ownership probability among households with children and a high regard for the family, confirming bequest motives in life‐insurance demand.     

Tax reform in a two-class growth model

This paper analyzes the welfare and distributional effects of tax reforms in a two-class model with exogenous labour supply. It extends the empirically calibrated, standard life-cycle model to include both pure life-cycle savers and households with an altruistic bequest motive. The tax reform simulations cover the move from an income to a wage and a consumption tax, respectively. The role of borrowing constraints is studied and a dynamic analysis of tax reforms using a static expectation approach is performed. The simulation results indicate that the two tax reforms have different impacts on the welfare of the two classes: while the pure life-cycle savers are better off with the consumption tax, the altruistically motivated households gain more under a wage tax. The results further show that while the introduction of a consumption tax is distributionally neutral, the move to a wage tax substantially increases income and wealth inequality.     

Reexamination of Economic Growth, Tax Policy, and Distributive Politics

The paper examines the relationship between economic growth, tax policy, and distribution of capital and labor ownership in a one‐sector political‐economy model of endogenous growth with productive government spending financed by a proportional tax on capital income. The analysis shows that inequality in wealth and income can be positively or negatively related to the optimal tax rate. In either environment, higher inequality leads to a lower after‐tax return to capital, thereby reducing the economy's growth rate.     

Older or Wealthier? The Impact of Age Adjustment on Wealth Inequality*

Differences in individual wealth holdings are widely viewed as a driving force of economic inequality. However, as this finding relies on cross‐sectional data, a concern is that older is confused with wealthier. We propose a new method to adjust for age effects in cross‐sections, which eliminates wealth inequality due to age, yet preserves inequality arising from other factors. Using a new cross‐country comparable database, we examine the impact of age adjustments on wealth inequality across countries and over time. We find that the most widely used method yields a substantially different picture of age‐adjusted wealth inequality than our method.     

INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY: EVIDENCE AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Drawing on the author's work, this lecture presents evidence on U.S. income and wealth inequality. It presents series for top income and wealth shares, and the distribution of economic growth by income groups. It discusses the mechanisms behind the evolution of U.S. income and wealth inequality from historical and comparative perspectives. It analyzes the role of public policy and in particular taxation in the evolution of inequality. (JEL D31, F66, J24)     

THE IMPACT OF BEQUESTS ON LIFETIME WEALTH ACCUMULATION: AN ECONOMETRIC STUDY OF TWO GENERATIONS OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN INDIA

Using retrospective data on bequest receipts and wealth over two generations of rural Indian households, we have estimated the effect of bequest receipts on the lifetime wealth accumulation of recipients. We exploit the availability of data on two generations of the same household by estimating a family fixed effects model that controls for unobserved, intergenerationally-persistent household endowments. Our results suggest an adverse impact of bequest receipts on the wealth accumulation of recipients. This effect is much more negative for the current generation of household heads than for the previous generation, indicating that the disincentive effects associated with bequest receipts have increased substantially over a generation. Such disincentive effects are consistent with the commonly-observed phenomenon of "regression to the mean." The empirical results also show that the positive association between schooling and wealth accumulation has strengthened substantially over the course of a generation, implying rising returns to schooling.     

Stochastic dominance and thick-tailed wealth distributions

Right-skewed and thick-tailed wealth distributions have been documented as an empirical regularity across space and time. A key mechanism for explaining these distributional features is proportional random growth. We investigate the comparative statics of a well-defined class of random growth models when allowing for stochastically ordered shifts in the wealth return process. An order-contingent monotone comparative statics property is identified, according to which pure increases in risk (e.g. higher volatility of capital returns) foster top wealth concentration whereas first-order stochastically dominated shifts in the return process (induced by e.g. proportional capital income taxation) rather lower inequality at the upper end of the distribution. Our analysis points to the potentially ambiguous effects on top wealth inequality of introducing or modifying capital income tax treatments in the presence of stochastic returns.     

Redistributive taxation,wealth distribution,and economic growth

This paper examines the relationship between wealth distribution and economic growth in an endogenous growth model with heterogeneous households and redistributive taxation. In this paper, we incorporate an endogenous determination of redistributive policy into the model, focusing on the relation between pre- and post-tax inequality. Endogenous redistributive policy affects wealth distribution and economic growth. Therefore, the relation between post-tax inequality and economic growth is different from that between pre-tax inequality and economic growth. Results show that there exists a negative correlation between pre-tax inequality and economic growth, whereas there exists an inverted-U relationship between post-tax inequality and economic growth in a voting equilibrium.     

THE RISK‐FREE RATE IN A FINITE HORIZON MODEL WITH BEQUESTS

This paper studies the risk‐free rate in an overlapping generations economy with bequests. It is shown that the risk‐free rate depends on risk aversion, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, the share of wealth invested in human wealth, life expectancy, and the preference for bequests. In a standard life‐cycle context, mortality increases the subjective time rate of discount, and thus increases the compensation required to postpone consumption. This latter effect is offset in a bequest‐driven model of the type considered here, leading to much more powerful income effects. In this sense, the model provides a bequest‐motive explanation for the risk‐free rate puzzle put forward by Weil in 1989.     

Capital Wealth Taxation: Theory and Application

Using an ls model analysis, the economic effects of implementing a modest taxation rate on capital wealth (3%) are found to be basically favorable: slightly higher output, lower inequality as measured by various Gini coefficients, and higher social welfare according to the three major social welfare functions—Bentham, Nash and Rawls. Implementing capital wealth taxation enables a compensating reduction in the labor-income taxation rate. The single most important consequence of this change is increased labor output among the wealthiest households, whose labor productivity is highest. Even though labor output is reduced among less-wealthy households, the overall effect on aggregate output is positive.     

Unemployment,rural–urban migration and environmental regulation

This paper develops a general equilibrium model that incorporates specific features pertaining to developing countries: a large informal sector and rural–urban migration. A calibrated version of the model is used to study the effects of energy tax changes and a reduction in agricultural‐sector energy subsidies on labor market outcomes. The results indicate that the incidence of energy taxes is partly shifted on to the rural sector through rural–urban migration. The results thus highlight the importance of modeling the features particular to developing countries and the economic general equilibrium effects when assessing the impact of environmental taxation in those countries.     

The Effects of Bequest Tax on Land Prices and Land Use

The paper examines whether bequest taxation affects land use, using an overlapping-generations model. In Japan, in assessing land for the purpose of inheritance taxation, the assessed value is less than the market value; however, other assets are valued at market value. Such an asymmetry creates a greater incentive for the older generation to hold land, because the probability of decease is higher for older than younger persons. With constant technology available in each generation, the inheritance tax is found to lead to inefficient land use, sluggish conversion of land over time and higher land prices.
JEL Classification Numbers: H24, R14.     

Do estate and gift taxes affect the timing of private transfers?

Proposals to alter the estate tax are contentious and have been considered largely in an empirical vacuum. This paper examines time series and cross-sectional variation to identify the effects of estate and gift taxation on the timing of private transfers. The analysis is based on data from the 1989, 1992, 1995, 1998, and 2001 Surveys of Consumer Finances. Legislative activity during this period reduced the tax disadvantage of bequests relative to gifts. Moreover, the magnitude of this reduction differed systematically across identifiable household categories. We find that households experiencing larger declines in the expected tax disadvantages of bequests reduced inter vivos transfers relative to households experiencing small declines in the tax disadvantages of bequests. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the timing of transfers is responsive to applicable gift and estate tax rates. The results also provide evidence of a systematic bequest motive for high-wealth households.     

Labor or consumption taxes? An application with a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents

This study analyzes the effects of tax reform that shifts tax burden from labor to consumption. In this context, I also deal with the issue of progressivity. Even though this kind of tax policy change has recently gained popularity, its positive effects are debatable while the offsetting effect of a consumption tax on labor supply makes the net output change rather ambiguous. I examine these effects using a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents. The model is calibrated to fit certain characteristics of the Finnish economy. In addition to output and employment effects, I study the tax reform's effect on income and wealth distribution. First, I find that eliminating progressivity in labor taxation increases output via increase in capital accumulation that comes, however, in expense of slightly more inequality. Then, tax reform that replaces progressive labor taxes with a flat-rate consumption tax leads to a significant rise in capital accumulation, a negligible change in labor supply and gross labor income distribution, but a relatively considerable increase in wealth concentration.