Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • October 2014
  • Article
  • Journal of Public Economics

The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: Normative Diversity and a Role for Equal Sacrifice

By: Matthew Weinzierl
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:43
ShareBar

Abstract

A prominent assumption in modern optimal tax research is that the objective of taxation is Utilitarian. I present new survey evidence that most people disagree with this assumption, preferring tax policies based at least in part on a classic alternative objective: the principle of Equal Sacrifice. I generalize the standard model to accommodate this preference for a mixed objective, proposing a method by which to make disparate criteria commensurable while respecting Pareto efficiency. Then, I show that optimal policy in this generalized model, calibrated to the survey evidence and U.S. microdata, quantitatively matches several features of existing tax policy that are incompatible in the conventional model but widely endorsed in reality, including the coexistence of substantial redistribution and limited tagging. Together, these findings demonstrate the potential of a positive theory of optimal taxation.

Keywords

Taxation; Theory

Citation

Weinzierl, Matthew. "The Promise of Positive Optimal Taxation: Normative Diversity and a Role for Equal Sacrifice." Journal of Public Economics 118 (October 2014): 128–142. (Also NBER Working Paper Series, No. 18599.)
  • SSRN
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Matthew C. Weinzierl

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • November–December 2022
    • Harvard Business Review

    Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.

    By: Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack and Brendan Rosseau
    • October 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Spaceport America, Public Sector Risk-Taking, and Political Accountability (B)

    By: Matthew Weinzierl, Dava Newman, Rebecca Browder and Angela Acocella
    • October 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Spaceport America, Public Sector Risk-taking, and Political Accountability (A)

    By: Matthew Weinzierl, Dava Newman, Rebecca Browder and Angela Acocella
More from the Author
  • Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now. By: Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack and Brendan Rosseau
  • Spaceport America, Public Sector Risk-Taking, and Political Accountability (B) By: Matthew Weinzierl, Dava Newman, Rebecca Browder and Angela Acocella
  • Spaceport America, Public Sector Risk-taking, and Political Accountability (A) By: Matthew Weinzierl, Dava Newman, Rebecca Browder and Angela Acocella
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College