The aim of this paper is to examine the concentration of wealth among the group of top wealth holders, defined as those with wealth in excess of a high cut off. The paper begins by considering the definition of this cut off, analogous to the definition of a poverty line at the other end of the distribution. It then considers what can be learned about the proportion classified as ‘rich’ and abou...

I use data from the 1994 Consumer Expenditure Survey as well as other sources to measure the distributional impact of green tax reforms and consumption tax reforms using both annual income and lifetime income approaches to rank households. A modest tax reform in which environmental taxes equal to 10% of federal receipts are collected has a negligible impact on the income distribution when the f...

This study analyzes an overlapping generations economy with multiple family dynasties in which the abihty levels of children are random and unobservable. Each parent allocates his income between consumption and investment in the education of his child. Each child, in turn, decides how much effort toexert in school on the basis of his perceived marginal returns to schooling, a perception shaped ...

Internationally a debate on the distributional impact of energy taxation has focused on the tax burden relative to income. The general conclusion is that taxes are regressive, but at a varying degree for different countries. This study examines the relationship between location, income, heating technology characteristics, and the energy tax that the households pay. The paper aims at identifying...

This paper deals with the question, whether in a federal state the regions should obtain the right to levy regional income taxes. It is shown that a revenue sharing system in uences the optimal income tax rates and causes distortions. In a federal system with other distorting taxes, several states and a revenue sharing system the welfare e ects of regional income taxes can be positive or negati...

The authors assessed an expansion of Vermont's Dr. Dynasaur program that would cover all residents age 25 and younger. The current Dr. Dynasaur program combines Vermont's Medicaid program and Child Health Insurance Program for children ages 0 through 18 to provide a seamless insurance program for those with family incomes below 317 percent of the federal poverty level. The authors used RAND's C...

In recent years, with the implementation of the tax rate increases and ad hoc earnings base increases included in the 1977 Amendments to the Social Security Act, many observers have noted that social security taxes (for the old-age and survivors insurance (OASI), disability insurance (DI), and hospital insurance (HI) programs combined) now exceed Federal income taxes for many families. The ques...

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on labor income and savings in a twoperiod life-cycle model with ex ante identical households, endogenous leisure demands in both periods, and general processes of skill shocks over the life cycle. We demonstrate that the Atkinson-Stiglitz theorem breaks down under risk. Capital taxes are employed besides labor income taxes for two distinct reasons: i) c...

abstract tax is one of the main sources of financing government budget. therefore, having a clear picture about the attainable amount of taxes are not only necessary for optimal allocation of scarce resources for tax collection, but also helps the government to develop precise tax collection programs .in this article, the structural features of the tax revenues series have first been examined i...