High Marginal Tax Rates on the Top 1%? Lessons from a Life Cycle Model with Idiosyncratic Income Risk

52 Pages Posted: 22 Oct 2014 Last revised: 17 Apr 2022

See all articles by Fabian Kindermann

Fabian Kindermann

University of Regensburg; Netspar

Dirk Krueger

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 2014

Abstract

In this paper we argue that very high marginal labor income tax rates are an effective tool for social insurance even when households have preferences with high labor supply elasticity, make dynamic savings decisions, and policies have general equilibrium effects. To make this point we construct a large scale Overlapping Generations Model with uninsurable labor productivity risk, show that it has a wealth distribution that matches the data well, and then use it to characterize fiscal policies that achieve a desired degree of redistribution in society. We find that marginal tax rates on the top 1% of the earnings distribution of close to 90% are optimal. We document that this result is robust to plausible variation in the labor supply elasticity and holds regardless of whether social welfare is measured at the steady state only or includes transitional generations.

Suggested Citation

Kindermann, Fabian and Krueger, Dirk, High Marginal Tax Rates on the Top 1%? Lessons from a Life Cycle Model with Idiosyncratic Income Risk (October 2014). NBER Working Paper No. w20601, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2513161

Fabian Kindermann (Contact Author)

University of Regensburg ( email )

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Dirk Krueger

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics ( email )

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science
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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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