Author Description

This book assembles nine research papers on tax progressivity and its relationship to income inequality, written by leading public finance economists. The papers document the changes during the 1980s in progressivity at the federal, state, and local level in the U.S. Conceptual issues about how to measure progressivity are investigated. One paper investigates the extent to which the declining progressivity contributed to the well- documented increase in income inequality over the past two decades. Several papers investigate the economic impact and cost of progressive tax systems. Special attention is given to the behavioral response to taxation of high-income individuals, portfolio behavior, and the taxation of capital gains. The concluding sets of papers addresses the contentious issue of what constitutes a fair tax system. They contrast public attitudes concerning alternative tax systems to economistst notions of fairness and the tradeoff between fairness and economic growth. Each paper is followed by remarks of the conference discussant plus a summary of the conference discussion.