Research on Economic Inequality, volume 26, primarily contains papers presented at the 8th Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ) meeting. The papers cover such topics as the effect of inheritance taxation on the "pre-distribution" of income, and tax progressivity under alternative inequality definitions.

Research on Economic Inequality, volume 26, primarily contains papers presented at the 8th Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ) meeting. The papers cover such topics as the effect of inheritance taxation on the "pre-distribution" of income, and tax progressivity under alternative inequality definitions.

A collection of twenty-three studies that explore the latest developments in the analysis of income and wealth distribution and mobility. Economic research is increasingly focused on inequality in the distribution of personal resources and outcomes. One aspect of inequality is mobility: are individuals locked into their respective places in this distribution? To what extent do circumstances change, either over the lifecycle or across generations? Research not only measures inequality and mobility, but also analyzes the historical, economic, and social determinants of these outcomes and the effect of public policies. This volume explores the latest developments in the analysis of income and wealth distribution and mobility. The collection of twenty-three studies is divided into five sections. The first examines observed patterns of income inequality and shifts in the distribution of earnings and in other factors that contribute to it. The next examines wealth inequality, including a substantial discussion of the difficulties of defining and measuring wealth. The third section presents new evidence on the intergenerational transmission of inequality and the mechanisms that underlie it. The next section considers the impact of various policy interventions that are directed at reducing inequality. The final section addresses the challenges of combining household-level data, potentially from multiple sources such as surveys and administrative records, and aggregate data to study inequality, and explores ways to make survey data more comparable with national income accounts data.

Focuses on intergenerational mobility, and intergenerational transmission of inequality.

This report aims to understand the extent to which inequalities in opportunity and outcomes are related--and the mechanisms that drive that relationship--to help evaluate which policies have the most potential to level the playing field.

Focuses on intergenerational mobility, and intergenerational transmission of inequality.

To what degree should societies allow inequality to be inherited? What role should estate taxation play in shaping the intergenerational transmission of welfare? We explore these questions by modeling altruistically-linked individuals who experience privately observed taste or productivity shocks. Our positive economy is identical to models with infinite-lived individuals where efficiency requires immiseration: inequality grows without bound and everyone's consumption converges to zero. However, under an intergenerational interpretation, previous work only characterizes a particular set of Pareto-efficient allocations: those that value only the initial generation's welfare. We study other efficient allocations where the social welfare criterion values future generations directly, placing a positive weight on their welfare so that the effective social discount rate is lower than the private one. For any such difference in social and private discounting we find that consumption exhibits mean-reversion and that a steady-state, cross-sectional distribution for consumption and welfare exists, where no one is trapped at misery. The optimal allocation can then be implemented by a combination of income and estate taxation. We find that the optimal estate tax is progressive: fortunate parents face higher average marginal tax rates on their bequests. Keywords: Inequality, Altruism, Private Information, Immiseration, Social Discounting, Optimal Taxation, Estate Taxes, Dynamic Programming. JEL Classifications: C61, C62, D30, D63, D64, D82, H21, H23, H24, H43.