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- All HBS Web
(518)
- News (22)
- Research (470)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (393)
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- June 2020
- Article
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
Scherf, Robert, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation." Fiscal Studies: The Journal of Applied Public Economics 41, no. 2 (June 2020): 385–410. (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-070, August 2019. (Revised January 2019), and NBER Working Paper Series, No. 26276, September 2019.)
- 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
Scherf, Robert, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-070, January 2019. (Revised August 2019.)
- Article
Optimal Capital-Gains Taxation under Limited Information
By: Jerry R. Green and Eytan Sheshinski
Taxation of capital gains at realization may distort individuals' decisions regarding holding or selling during an asset's lifetime. This creates the problem of designing a tax structure for capital gains so as to induce efficient patterns of holding and selling.... View Details
Green, Jerry R., and Eytan Sheshinski. "Optimal Capital-Gains Taxation under Limited Information." Journal of Political Economy 86, no. 6 (December 1978): 1143–1158.
- 2022
- Chapter
Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation
By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew Weinzierl
Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details
Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory; Policy
Tuomala, Matti, and Matthew Weinzierl. "Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation." In Prioritarianism in Practice, edited by Matthew Adler and Ole Norheim. Cambridge University Press, 2022. (Also published in HBR Insights, December 2020.)
- 2020
- Working Paper
Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation
By: Matti Tuomala and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Prioritarianism has been at the center of the formal approach to optimal tax theory since its modern starting point in Mirrlees (1971), but most theorists’ use of it is motivated by tractability rather than explicit normative reasoning. We characterize analytically and... View Details
Keywords: Prioritarianism; Optimal Taxation; Utilitarianism; Redistribution; Inverse-optimum; Taxation; Theory
Tuomala, Matti, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, December 2020.
- February 2022
- Article
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 twentieth century. We build a panel of the universe of inventors who patent since 1920, and a historical state-level corporate tax database with corporate tax... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Income Taxes; Corporate Taxation; Firms; Inventors; State Taxation; Business Taxation; R＆D Tax Credits; Taxation; Innovation and Invention; History; United States
Akcigit, Ufuk, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas, and Stefanie Stantcheva. "Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century." Quarterly Journal of Economics 137, no. 1 (February 2022): 329–385.
- 2025
- Working Paper
Extractive Taxation and the French Revolution
By: Tommaso Giommoni, Gabriel Loumeau and Marco Tabellini
We study the fiscal determinants of the French Revolution, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the salt tax—a large source of royal revenues and one of the most extractive forms of taxation of the Ancien Régime. Implementing a Regression Discontinuity... View Details
Keywords: Extractive Taxation; Regime Change; French Revolution; State Capacity; Taxation; History; Government Administration; Attitudes; Public Opinion
Giommoni, Tommaso, Gabriel Loumeau, and Marco Tabellini. "Extractive Taxation and the French Revolution." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 25-047, April 2025. (Featured at VoxEU.)
- 2020
- Working Paper
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjami Lockwood, Afras Y. Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
Lockwood, Benjami, Afras Y. Sial, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 28098, November 2020.
- November 2020
- Article
Taxation in Matching Markets
By: Arnaud Dupuy, Alfred Galichon, Sonia Jaffe and Scott Duke Kominers
We analyze the effects of taxation in two-sided matching markets, i.e., markets in which all agents have heterogeneous preferences over potential partners. In matching markets, taxes can generate inefficiency on the allocative margin by changing who is matched to whom,... View Details
Dupuy, Arnaud, Alfred Galichon, Sonia Jaffe, and Scott Duke Kominers. "Taxation in Matching Markets." International Economic Review 61, no. 4 (November 2020): 1591–1634.
- 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
Keywords: Optimal Taxation; Welfarism; Luck; Benefit-based Taxation; Taxation; Equality and Inequality; Attitudes
Weinzierl, Matthew C. "Popular Acceptance of Inequality Due to Innate Brute Luck and Support for Classical Benefit-based Taxation." Journal of Public Economics 155 (November 2017): 54–63. (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-104, March 2016; revised July 2016, and NBER Working Paper Series, No. 22462, July 2016. See Notes on Fortune article.)
- 2021
- Article
Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation
By: Benjamin B. Lockwood, Afras Sial and Matthew C. Weinzierl
Economists typically check the robustness of their results by comparing them across plausible ranges of parameter values and model structures. A preferable approach to robustness—for the purposes of policymaking and evaluation—is to design policy that takes these... View Details
Lockwood, Benjamin B., Afras Sial, and Matthew C. Weinzierl. "Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation." Tax Policy and the Economy 35 (2021).
- July 1979 (Revised August 2019)
- Background Note
Note on Taxation
By: William J. Poorvu, Arthur I Segel, Glenn S. Miller, Michael D. Kummer, Charles F. Wu, Po Sit and Joseph M. Gerstel
Every real-estate transaction is affected by the tax consequences that result from its form and substance. Structuring a transaction without a thorough understanding of its tax considerations is likely to reduce the transaction's potential value. The failure to utilize... View Details
Poorvu, William J., Arthur I Segel, Glenn S. Miller, Michael D. Kummer, Charles F. Wu, Po Sit, and Joseph M. Gerstel. "Note on Taxation." Harvard Business School Background Note 379-192, July 1979. (Revised August 2019.)
- November 2006
- Background Note
U.S. Taxation of Foreign-Source Corporate Income
By: Henry B. Reiling
Identifies several of the problems and policy choices associated with taxing foreign-source income. Examples are given of the practical after-tax effects of the major alternatives. Foreign tax credit and "tax haven" based business activities receive special attention.... View Details
Reiling, Henry B. "U.S. Taxation of Foreign-Source Corporate Income." Harvard Business School Background Note 207-085, November 2006.
- 19 Aug 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice
No Taxation without Information
Tax evasion generates billions of dollars of losses in government revenue and creates large distortions, especially in developing countries. A growing, mostly theoretical literature argues that information flows are central to understanding effective taxation. This... View Details
- Article
Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice
By: N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew C. Weinzierl and Danny Yagan
We highlight and explain eight lessons from optimal tax theory and compare them to the last few decades of OECD tax policy. As recommended by theory, top marginal income tax rates have declined, marginal income tax schedules have flattened, redistribution has risen... View Details
Mankiw, N. Gregory, Matthew C. Weinzierl, and Danny Yagan. "Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice." Journal of Economic Perspectives 23, no. 4 (Fall 2009): 147–174.
- 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
Weinzierl, Matthew. "Revisiting the Classical View of Benefit-Based Taxation." Economic Journal 128, no. 612 (July 2018): F37–F64. (Also Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 14-101, April 2014.)
- 2000
- Chapter
The Taxation of Executive Compensation
By: Brian Hall and Jeffrey B. Liebman
Hall, Brian, and Jeffrey B. Liebman. "The Taxation of Executive Compensation." In Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 14, edited by James Poterba, 1–44. Cambridge, MA: NBER and MIT Press Journals, 2000.