Inequality

Pareto-Improvements, Welfare Trade-Offs, and the Taxation of Couples

We develop a theory of tax reforms for a setting with multi-dimensional heterogeneity amongst taxpayers and multiple economic decisions that are all subject to fixed and variable costs. The theorems in this paper provide a complete characterization …

Just Cheap Talk? Investigating Fairness Preferences in Hypothetical Scenarios

The measurement of preferences often relies on surveys in which individuals evaluate hypothetical scenarios. This paper proposes and validates a novel factorial survey tool to measure fairness preferences. We specifically examine whether a …

Experimental Evidence on Attitudes Toward Inequality and Fairness

Many of our everyday life experiences suggest that humans are social individuals who care about themselves and others. Yet, for a long time, the economic discipline has focused on modeling the purely self-interested "homo economicus". In this review, …

Equality of Opportunity: Fairness Preferences and Beliefs About Inequality

This chapter reviews the existing literature on fairness preferences and beliefs about inequality. The review is divided into two parts. The first part discusses to what extent individual characteristics and choices are perceived as unfair sources of …

The Taxation of Couples

This paper studies the tax treatment of couples. We develop two different approaches. One is tailored to the analysis of tax systems that stick to the principle that the tax base for couples is the sum of their incomes. The other is tailored to the …

Self-Financing Tax Cuts Around the World: New Theoretical Results and Applications to 33 Countries

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Lower and upper bound estimates of inequality of opportunity for emerging economies

Equality of opportunity is an important normative ideal of distributive justice. In spite of its wide acceptance and economic relevance, standard estimation approaches suffer from data limitations that can lead to both downward and upward biased …

Mehrheitsfähige und wohlfahrtssteigernde Reformen des deutschen Steuer- und Transfersystems: Von Entzugsraten, Mittelstands- und Wohlstandsbäuchen

Über die Ausgestaltung des deutschen Steuer- und Transfersystems wird im Zusammenhang mit der Bundestagswahl neuerlich kontrovers diskutiert. Die Autoren greifen zentrale Aspekte der öffentlichen Diskussion über die steuerliche Behandlung niedriger, …

(Un)Fair inequality in the labor market: A global study

How do citizens of different societies perceive the fairness of inequalities? Answering this question is key in order to interpret the stability of existing inequalities, to grasp political polarization, and to inform the design of policies that …