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on Public Finance |
| By: | Martin Brun (Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research (FIT), Tampere University (TUNI), and Economics of Inequality and Poverty Analysis (EQUALITAS)); Xavier Ramos (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), Economics of Inequality and Poverty Analysis (EQUALITAS), and IZA -Institute of Labor EconomicsAuthor-Name:) |
| Abstract: | We survey the literature on attitudes towards inequality and redistributive preferences. We focus on the effects of misperceptions, social preferences, and social identity. Recent contributions addressing these relationships have produced novel findings that are hardly covered in previous surveys. Before reviewing the empirical literature, we discuss how the theoretical literature has embedded in canonical models of social preferences the three issues we focus on in this review. |
| Keywords: | attitudes to inequality, preferences for redistribution, misperceptions, fairness concerns, inequality aversion, social identity |
| JEL: | D31 D63 D90 D91 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fit:wpaper:33 |
| By: | Emma LaGuardia; Leslie McGranahan; Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach |
| Abstract: | The Earned Income Tax Credit is unique among social programs in that benefits are not paid out evenly across the calendar year but are received in a lump-sum cash payment. We exploit this feature of the EITC to investigate how receiving this influx of cash affects food expenditure patterns of eligible households. We find consistent evidence that households increase their spending on healthy foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and poultry, and dairy products when they receive their tax credit. Causal estimates of the spending response to this lump-sum payment are about twice as large as the cross-section variation in spending by income implies. By contrast, there is no measurable increase in spending on soft drinks including sodas and sports drinks, and evidence suggests that spending on soft drinks is relatively inelastic with regard to income. |
| JEL: | H3 I38 Q18 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34007 |
| By: | Kaoru HOSONO; Masaki HOTEI; Daisuke MIYAKAWA |
| Abstract: | Using tax filing data of Japanese business enterprises from 2014 to 2020, we investigate how the 2015-2018 tax reforms in Japan affected the average tax burden and whether the reforms benefited growing firms or not. We first calculate backward-looking effective tax rates (ETRs) and then estimate the sensitivity of the ETR and its components with respect to firm sales growth, R&D intensity, and other characteristics. Our findings are as follows. First, the average ETR increased after the reform. Second, compared with the average ETR, ETRs for growing and R&D-intensive firms initially decreased, but then began to increase. The reforms did not benefit growing firms in the long run due to the expansion of tax bases. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:25072 |
| By: | Enrico Rubolino; Enrico Rubolino |
| Abstract: | Unpaid domestic work continues to fall largely on women, despite their growing presence in the workforce. This paper asks whether policies changing the relative bargaining position of spouses can disrupt this pattern. I use the introduction of a bachelor tax in fascist Italy to show that altering men’s incentives to marry shaped the allocation of domestic work. Men in tax-induced marriages took on more domestic work, while their wives gained time, agency, and better economic outcomes. Effects are long-lasting and transmitted across generations: women raised in households with more equitable labor divisions also perform less housework. The findings suggest shocks in bargaining power can loosen the hold of social norms and reconfigure domestic life. |
| Keywords: | domestic work, female labor force participation, intra-household bargaining, bachelor tax, marriage market, gender-based taxation |
| JEL: | J22 J16 J12 H31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11998 |