Article
National Tax Journal

Optimal Taxation When Children's Abilities Depend on Parents' Resources

By: Alexander Gelber and Matthew Weinzierl

Format:Print

Abstract

Empirical research suggests that parents' economic resources affect their children's future earnings abilities. Optimal tax policy therefore treats future ability distributions as endogenous to current taxes. We model this endogeneity, calibrate the model to match estimates of the intergenerational transmission of earnings ability in the United States, and use the model to simulate such an optimal policy numerically. The optimal policy in this context is more redistributive toward low-income parents than existing U.S. tax policy. It also increases the probability that low-income children move up the economic ladder, generating a present-value welfare gain of one and three-quarters percent of consumption in our baseline case.

Keywords

Taxation; Family and Family Relationships; Welfare

Citation

Gelber, Alexander, and Matthew Weinzierl. "Optimal Taxation When Children's Abilities Depend on Parents' Resources." National Tax Journal 69, no. 1 (March 2016): 11–40. (Winner, Richard A. Musgrave prize for best paper published in the NTJ. Also HBS Working Paper 13-014 and NBER Working Paper 18332.)