Inequalities and Taxation

ournée d'étude organisée par Patrice Duran (directeur de l'IEA de Paris) et Facundo Alvaredo (chercheur en économie, université d'Oxford, Royaume-Uni, résident à l'IEA de Paris)

There is widespread concern about growing economic inequality and about its long-run development and transmission across generations.  After a post-war period when the welfare state, the spread of education, and progressive taxation combined to steadily reduce economic inequality, the decades since 1980 have seen sharply rising income inequality in a number of countries, including the US, the UK, Scandinavia. Recent research has highlighted the return of inheritance as an important factor. A wave of tax reductions favoured the well-off during the last thirty years, in parallel with an upsurge in top shares in most English-speaking countries to levels not seen since the years before the Great Depression. Naturally, today’s crisis has reinforced the interest in looking at the upper part of the distribution, the more so after observing that recent financial crises tended to be followed by an increase in income concentration. Concern about the rise in top income shares has led to a range of proposals. Some countries have already announced increases in top income tax rates, the fight against tax havens, and the re-enforcement of wealth taxes that were abolished not so long ago; others are considering limits on remuneration and new taxes on financial transactions. These are being implemented at a time of recession or stagnation, and growing unemployment, and leave many questions unanswered. The public debate was also recently re-kindled by a few wealthy businesspersons around the world asking to pay higher taxes.

Keynote speakers: Tony Atkinson (Oxford University), Jacques Le Cacheux (OFCE, Sciences Po), Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics), Alain Trannoy (Ehess / GREQAM-IDEP), Hubert Kempf (Paris School of Economics), Salvatore Morelli (Oxford University), Jesper Roine (Stockholm School of Economics), Gabriel Zucman (Paris School of Economics).

Conclusion: Nicolas Delalande (Sciences Po - Paris)