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- Faculty Publications (231)
Taxation
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- April 2019 (Revised April 2020)
- Case
Reaganomics: Impact and Legacy
By: Tom Nicholas, John Masko and Matthew G. Preble
During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and his administration instituted several far-reaching economic policies that had both near- and long-term impacts on such aspects of the U.S. economy as monetary policy, inflation, the tax structure, and the role of... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation
By: Robert Scherf and Matthew C. Weinzierl
The normative principle of benefit-based taxation has exerted substantial influence on many areas of public finance, but it has been largely set aside in the modern theoretical approach to optimal income taxation, where welfarist objectives dominate. A prerequisite for... View Details
- November 2018
- Teaching Note
The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree
Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-077. This teaching note provides the back up analysis for the various alternatives to be considered in choosing the optimal investment structure for the real estate acquisition. It contrasts the interests of the tax exempt investors... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century
By: Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas and Stefanie Stantcheva
This paper studies the effect of corporate and personal taxes on innovation in the United States over the 20th century. We use three new datasets: a panel of the universe of inventors who patent since 1920; a dataset of the employment, location, and patents of firms... View Details
- July 2018 (Revised September 2018)
- Case
Donald Trump and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
By: Matthew Weinzierl and Robert Scherf
In January 2018, President Donald Trump was full of optimism. He had just signed the most substantial legislation of his young presidency, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), making major changes to the tax code. Echoing his campaign slogan—Make America Great Again—Trump... View Details
- July 2018
- Article
Revisiting the Classical View of Benefit-Based Taxation
This article incorporates into modern optimal tax theory the classical logic of benefit‐based taxation in which an individual's benefit from the activities of the state is tied to his or her income‐earning ability. First‐best optimal policy is characterized... View Details
- Book Review
Review of Global Tax Fairness edited by Thomas Pogge and Krishen Mehta
This timely volume (Global Tax Fairness, edited by Thomas Pogge and Krishen Mehta) on the proper taxation of multinational enterprises argues that several feasible, near-term reforms could substantially narrow the scope for tax avoidance by closing information gaps,... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Corporate Tax Cuts Increase Income Inequality
By: Suresh Nallareddy, Ethan Rouen and Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato
This paper studies the effects of corporate tax changes on income inequality. Using state corporate tax rate changes as a setting, we show that cutting state corporate tax rates leads to increases in income inequality. This result is robust to using regression and... View Details
- April 2018
- Article
The Power of Voice in Stimulating Morality: Eliciting Taxpayer Preferences Increases Tax Compliance
By: Cait Lamberton, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Michael I. Norton
Decisions about paying taxes represent one of the most common moral quandaries faced by citizens. In the
present research, we argue that taxpayer compliance can be raised by increasing “voice”: allowing taxpayers
to express non-binding preferences about the way their... View Details
Keywords: Morality; Public Policy; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Taxation; Policy; Attitudes; Governance Compliance
- March 2018
- Teaching Note
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity (A) and (B)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Through the challenges facing Target, the case examines the ways in which corporations can become involved in political and legislative debates and processes, ranging from campaign contributions to lobbying. In 2016, Target CEO Brian Cornell must determine how to... View Details
Keywords: Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States
- March 2018
- Article
Financing the African Colonial State: The Revenue Imperative and Forced Labor
Although recent studies on African colonial tax systems have deepened our understanding of early fiscal capacity building efforts in the region, they have largely ignored the contributions from a widely used but invisible source of state revenue: that of labor... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz, Timothy J. Becker, Ricardo Andrade and Sayiddah F. McCree
In January 2018, Caelan Langan, an associate at KSW Partners LLC (“KSW”), was asked by Katherine Scott, the partner for whom he worked, to recommend a proposed structure to acquire a prominent office building in San Francisco for their most recent fund. Caelan was... View Details
- Article
How Did the Great Recession Affect Charitable Giving?
By: Arthur C. Brooks
A great deal of research has studied the effects of income and tax changes on charitable giving. However, little work has focused on how these relationships were affected by the Great Recession. This article estimates the tax and income effects using the 2009 Panel... View Details
- Article
(Mis)perceptions of Inequality
By: Oliver P. Hauser and Michael I. Norton
Inequality is arguably the defining societal issue of the 21st century. The debate over “who gets what’ underlies policy debates ranging from taxation to health care to wages and permeates society at all levels, attracting increasing interest from policymakers,... View Details
- December 2017
- Response
Reply: Do Powerful Politicians Really Cause Corporate Downsizing?
By: Lauren Cohen, Joshua D. Coval and Christopher J. Malloy
While we commend the initiative of Snyder and Welch (2017), we lay out in this short reply why we remain highly confident in our results and our interpretation thereof. We welcome authors to continue to explore the data for themselves and look forward to the new... View Details
- Article
Popular Acceptance of Inequality Due to Innate Brute Luck and Support for Classical Benefit-based Taxation
U.S. survey respondents' views on distributive justice differ in two specific, related ways from what is conventionally assumed in modern optimal tax research. When expressing their preferences over allocations in stylized, hypothetical scenarios meant to isolate key... View Details
- September 2017
- Article
The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Firm-Level Evidence from a Policy Experiment
By: Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari and Fabio Kanczuk
Emerging-market governments adopted capital control taxes to manage the massive surge in foreign capital inflows in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Theory suggests that the imposition of capital controls can drive up the cost of capital and curb... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth
By: Urooj Khan, Suresh Nallareddy and Ethan Rouen
We investigate the relation between the growth in corporate profits and the overall U.S. economy, focusing on the impact of the U.S. corporate tax regime on this relation. We document that the growth of corporate profits, on average, has outpaced the growth of the... View Details
- Article
Does Front-Loading Taxation Increase Savings?: Evidence from Roth 401(k) Introductions
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Can governments increase private savings by taxing savings up front instead of in retirement? Roth 401(k) contributions are not tax-deductible in the contribution year, but withdrawals in retirement are untaxed. The more common before-tax 401(k) contribution is... View Details
- June 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Supplement
Making Target the Target: Boycotts and Corporate Political Activity (B)
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Victor Wu
Supplements the (A) Case. View Details
Keywords: Campaign Finance Reform; Corporate Political Activity; Lobbying; LGBTQ; Campaign Contributions; Campaign Finance; Retail; Shareholder Activism; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Problems and Challenges; Laws and Statutes; Rights; Crisis Management; Risk Management; Media; Political Elections; Taxation; Corporate Accountability; Values and Beliefs; Fairness; Diversity; Customers; Communication; Business and Government Relations; Retail Industry; United States