Citation:
Di Tella, Rafael, Alberto Cavallo, and Aldo Sesia. "Hank and Nancy: The Subprime Crisis, the Run on Lehman and the Shadow Banks, and the Decision to Bailout Wall Street." Harvard Business School Case 718-022, October 2017. (Revised April 2019.) View Details|
Working Paper HBS Working Paper Series 2016 Meet the Oligarchs: Business Legitimacy, State Capacity and Taxation |
Abstract
We analyze the role of people’s beliefs about the rich in the determination of public policy in the context of a randomized online survey experiment. A question we study is the desirability of government-private sector meetings, a variable we argue is connected to State capacity. Survey respondents primed with negative views about business leaders want fewer meetings as well as higher taxes for the top 1% and more regulation. We also study how these effects change when subjects are (additionally) primed with positive/negative views about government officials. Distrust in the government increases the preferred tax rate on the top 1% only when business legitimacy is low. A model with multiple equilibria helps interpret these findings. In one of the equilibria, meetings are allowed, business legitimacy is high, and people set a low income tax rate for businesspeople. In the other, meetings are forbidden, business legitimacy is low, and people set high taxes to punish the businesspeople for their corrupt behavior.
Keywords: Business Legitimacy; state capacity; Meetings; taxes; Top 1%; regulation; Prejudice and Bias; Values and Beliefs; Taxation; Business and Government Relations;
Citation:
Di Tella, Rafael, Juan Dubra, and Alejandro Lagomarsino. "Meet the Oligarchs: Business Legitimacy, State Capacity and Taxation." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-046, December 2016.
