Working Paper

The demand for income tax progressivity in the growth model

Abstract: This paper examines the degree of income tax progressivity chosen through a simple majority vote in a model with savings. Households have permanent differences with respect to their labor productivity and their discount factors. The government has limited commitment to future policy, so voting is repeated every period. Because the model features mobility within the wealth distribution, the median voter is determined endogenously. In a numerical experiment, the model is initialized to the 1992 U.S. joint distribution of income and wealth as well as several statistics of the federal income tax distribution. Support for a high degree of progressivity is widespread. In the long run, households that vote for lower progressivity have high labor productivity and/or very high wealth. A movement towards greater progressivity increases aggregate capital and income, but it effects only a small decrease in long-run income and wealth inequality.

Keywords: Income tax; Taxation; Income distribution; Wealth;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Part of Series: Working Papers (Old Series)

Publication Date: 2013

Number: 1106