REVISION: Declining Labor Shares and the Global Rise of Corporate Savings
Date Posted: Jul 23, 2012
We document a 5 percentage point decline in the share of global corporate income paid to labor from the mid-1970s to the late 2000s. Increased dividend payments did not absorb all of the resulting increase in profits, and therefore, the supply of corporate savings increased by over 20 percentage points as a share of total global savings. These trends were stronger in countries experiencing greater declines in the relative price of investment goods. We develop a model featuring CES production and
REVISION: Labor Wedges and Open Economy Puzzles
Date Posted: Jun 21, 2011
A parsimonious model with home production, estimated to match moments of the “labor wedge,” explains prominent puzzles of the international business cycle. If market and home activity are substitutes, then the measured labor wedge increases whenever market consumption and employment decrease. Home production breaks the tight negative link between market consumption and its marginal utility and therefore helps explain the international risk sharing puzzle. In an estimated two-country dynamic gene
REVISION: Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores
Date Posted: Sep 27, 2010
Gender-Based Taxation (GBT) satisfies Ramsey’s rule of optimality because it taxes at a lower rate the more elastic labor supply of women. This holds when different elasticities between men and women are taken as exogenous. We study GBT in a model in which labor supply elasticities emerge endogenously from the bargained allocation of goods and time in the family. We explore the cases of superior bargaining power for men, higher men wages and higher women productivity in home duties. In all cases
REVISION: One Dollar, One Vote
Date Posted: Sep 25, 2010
This paper revisits the relationship between inequality and redistribution in a panel of advanced OECD countries. Using panel data methods that hold constant a variety of determinants of redistributive spending, I find a non-monotonic relationship between pre-tax-and-transfer distribution of income and redistribution. Relative to mean income, a more affluent rich and middle class are associated with less redistribution and a richer poor class is associated with more redistribution. These results
REVISION: Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores
Date Posted: Sep 25, 2010
Gender-Based Taxation (GBT) satisfies Ramsey’s rule of optimality because it taxes at a lower rate the more elastic labor supply of women. This holds when different elasticities between men and women are taken as exogenous. We study GBT in a model in which labor supply elasticities emerge endogenously from the bargained allocation of goods and time in the family. We explore the cases of superior bargaining power for men, higher men wages and higher women productivity in home duties. In all cases
New: Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores
Date Posted: Jun 09, 2008
Gender Based Taxation (GBT) satisfies Ramsey's optimal criterion by taxing less the more elastic labour supply of (married) women. This holds when different elasticities between men and women are taken as exogenous and primitive. But in this paper we also explore differences in gender elasticities which emerge endogenously in a model in which spouses bargain over the allocation of home duties. GBT changes spouses' implicit bargaining power and induces a more balanced allocation of house work and
New: Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores
Date Posted: May 23, 2008
Gender Based Taxation (GBT) satisfies Ramsey's optimal criterion by taxing less the more elastic labor supply of (married) women. This holds when different elasticities between men and women are taken as exogenous and primitive. But in this paper we also explore differences in gender elasticities which emerge endogenously in a model in which spouses bargain over the allocation of home duties. GBT changes spouses' implicit bargaining power and induces a more balanced allocation of house work and
New: Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores
Date Posted: Jan 31, 2008
Gender Based Taxation (GBT) satisfies Ramsey's optimal criterion by taxing less the more elastic labor supply of women. This holds when different elasticities between men and women are taken as exogenous and primitive. We study GBT in a model in which, instead, elasticity differences emerge endogenously from the bargained allocation of family duties. We explore two polar cases, which summarize the channels through which GBT affects an economy encompassing a wider set of possible reasons for gend