scholarly journals Forces Shaping Hours Worked in the OECD, 1960–2004

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cara McDaniel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labor Income ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Home Production ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Key Features

The goal of this paper is to examine the role of taxes and productivity growth as forces influencing market hours. To achieve this goal, the paper considers a calibrated growth model extended to include home production and subsistence consumption, both of which are found to be key features influencing market hours. The model is simulated for 15 OECD countries. The primary force driving changes in market hours is found to be changing labor income tax rates. Productivity catch-up relative to the United States is found to be an important secondary force. (JEL E24, H24, H31, J22, J24)

scholarly journals The NAIRU in Theory and Practice

2002 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Ball ◽  
N. Gregory Mankiw
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Inflation Rate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Business Cycle Theory ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

This paper discusses the NAIRU—the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. It first considers the role of the NAIRU concept in business cycle theory, arguing that this concept is implicit in any model in which monetary policy influences both inflation and unemployment. The exact value of the NAIRU is hard to measure, however, in part because it changes over time. The paper then discusses why the NAIRU changes and, in particular, why it fell in the United States during the 1990s. The most promising hypothesis is that the decline in the NAIRU is attributable to the acceleration in productivity growth.

scholarly journals How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax System? A Historical and International Perspective

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Piketty ◽  
Emmanuel Saez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Tax Progressivity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Income Groups ◽  
The U.S

This paper provides estimates of federal tax rates by income groups in the United States since 1960, with special emphasis on very top income groups. We include individual and corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, and estate and gift taxes. The progressivity of the U.S. federal tax system at the top of the income distribution has declined dramatically since the 1960s. This dramatic drop in progressivity is due primarily to a drop in corporate taxes and in estate and gift taxes combined with a sharp change in the composition of top incomes away from capital income and toward labor income. The sharp drop in statutory top marginal individual income tax rates has contributed only moderately to the decline in tax progressivity. International comparisons confirm that is it critical to take into account other taxes than the individual income tax to properly assess the extent of overall tax progressivity, both for time trends and for cross-country comparisons. The pattern for the United Kingdom is similar to the U.S. pattern. France had less progressive taxes than the United States or the United Kingdom in 1970 but has experienced an increase in tax progressivity and has now a more progressive tax system than the United States or the United Kingdom.

scholarly journals Class Altruism and Redistribution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ghiglino ◽  
David Juárez-Luna ◽  
Andreas Müller
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Other Regarding ◽  
Other Regarding Preferences

Abstract Why do tax rates vary so much across countries? We study the role of other-regarding preferences and ethnic fragmentation in redistribution. A government is elected by altruistic voters and chooses a redistributive income tax. Altruism is directed toward social identity groups. Three main factors yield low levels of redistribution: (i) strong in-group altruism among rich voters—referred to as class altruism; (ii) weak universal altruism—in particular among the rich; and (iii) ethnic fragmentation among poor voters. We document survey evidence that the pattern of altruism in the United States and the European Union is consistent with the observed differences in taxes.

scholarly journals Gender Gaps and the Rise of the Service Economy

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Rachel Ngai ◽  
Barbara Petrongolo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Service Economy ◽  
Home Production ◽  
Gender Gaps ◽  
Relative Wages

This paper investigates the role of the rise in services in the narrowing of gender gaps in hours and wages in recent decades. We highlight the between-industry component of differential gender trends for the United States and propose a model economy with goods, services, and home production, in which women have a comparative advantage in producing services. The rise of services, driven by structural transformation and marketization of home production, raises women's relative wages and market hours. Quantitatively, the model accounts for an important share of the observed trends in women's hours and relative wages. (JEL J16, J21, J22, J24, J31, L80)

Special Interests and the Adoption of the Income Tax in the United States

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett D. Baack ◽  
Edward John Ray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Single Element ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Role Of Government

Perhaps no single element involved with the rapid assumption of economic power by the federal government was more important than the passage of the income tax, the means by which the increasing role of government was financed. We explain the political and economic interests that came together to successfully pass the income tax, and we provide extensive empirical evidence regarding the determinants of the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Was It Prices, Productivity or Policy? Latin American Industrialisation after 1870

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
AURORA GÓMEZ-GALVARRIATO ◽  
JEFFREY G. WILLIAMSON
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terms Of Trade ◽  
Dutch Disease ◽  
Trade Data ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Catch Up

AbstractThe new trade data used here document the significance of industrialisation in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico after 1870. By 1910 Brazil and Mexico, in particular, led most of the poor periphery in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. While some of this impressive industrialisation was due to fast productivity growth in manufacturing, perhaps yielding some catch-up on their competitors in the United States and Europe, this article argues that there were even more powerful forces at work. Much of the industrialisation that occurred in Latin America was due to a cessation in the seven-decade rise in its net barter terms of trade, trends that reversed the deindustrialisation and ‘Dutch Disease’ forces that had dominated Latin America for almost a century. Equally important for Brazil and Mexico was favourable policy in the form of higher effective rates of protection for manufacturing, and a depreciation of the real exchange rate. These policies were missing in Argentina and Chile, and industrialisation suffered there as a consequence. Changing market conditions and policies seem to have been more important than changing fundamentals in accounting for Latin American industrialisation after 1870.

scholarly journals Does Home Production Drive Structural Transformation?

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 116-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio Moro ◽  
Solmaz Moslehi ◽  
Satoshi Tanaka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Productivity ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Income Elasticity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Home Production ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Production Sector

Using new home production data for the United States, we estimate a model of structural transformation with a home production sector, allowing for both non-homotheticity of preferences and differential productivity growth in each sector. We report two main findings. First, the estimation results show that home services have a lower income elasticity than market services. Second, the slowdown in home labor productivity, which started in the late 70s, is a key determinant of the rise of market services. Our counterfactual experiment shows that, without the slowdown, the share of market services would have been lower by 7.5 percent in 2010. (JEL D13, J24, L16)

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