This article reviews various issues linked to the rise in inequality observed in a number of
countries, particularly developed countries, over the past quarter century. Various sources of …

We provide an overview of microsimulation approaches for assessing the effects of policy on
income distribution. We focus on the role of tax-benefit policies and review the concept of …

This chapter reviews the use of microsimulation in understanding income inequality. The
primary added value of microsimulation models is the capacity to simulate counterfactual …

A prominent assumption in modern optimal tax research is that the objective of taxation is
Utilitarian. I present new survey evidence that most people reject this assumption's …

Calculating the welfare implications of changes to economic policy or shocks requires
economists to decide on a normative criterion. One approach is to elicit the relevant moral …

We study reforms of nonlinear income tax systems from a political economy perspective. We
present a median voter theorem for monotonic tax reforms, reforms so that the change in the …

Tax‐benefit policies affect changes in household incomes through two main channels:
discretionary policy changes and automatic stabilizers. We study their role in the EU …

This paper assesses the effect of key demographic changes (population ageing and
increasing educational attainment) that are expected by 2030 on the income distribution in …

This paper studies the sensitivity of long-run trends in top income shares to differences in top-
share measures. While the standard measure fixes a share of the population, we define …

The structure of the Italian personal income tax has undergone several important changes
since its introduction in 1974, following a path similar to those in other advanced economies …