Daniel R. Carroll

We study the optimal one-shot tax reform in the standard incomplete markets model where households differ in their wealth, earnings, permanent labor skill, and age. The government can provide transfers by raising tax revenue and has several tax instruments at its disposal: a flat capital income tax, a flat consumption tax, and a non-linear labor income tax. We compute the equilibrium and transitional dynamics for 3888 different tax combinations and find that the optimal fiscal policy funds a transfer that is above 60 percent of GDP through a combination of very high taxes on consumption and capital income. The labor tax schedule has a high average rate and more progressivity than the current US system. We explore the role of transitional dynamics, debt issuance, intergenerational disagreement, and fiscal spending rules in shaping the optimal policy. Policy is broadly similar if it is determined through majority voting rather than by a utilitarian planner.

We provide a quantitative analysis of the distributional effects of the 2018 increase in tariffs by the US and its major trading partners. We build a trade model with incomplete asset markets and households that are heterogeneous in their age, income, wealth, and labor skill. When tariff revenues are used to reduce distortionary taxes on consumption, labor, and capital income, the average welfare loss from the trade war is equivalent to a permanent 0.1 percent reduction in consumption. Much larger welfare losses are concentrated among retirees and low-wealth households, while only wealthy households experience a welfare gain.

We study the optimal one-shot tax reform in the standard incomplete markets model where households differ in their wealth, earnings, permanent labor skill, and age. The government can provide transfers by raising tax revenue and has several tax instruments at its disposal: a flat capital income tax, a flat consumption tax, and a non-linear labor income tax. The optimal fiscal policy funds a transfer that is nearly 50 percent of GDP through a combination of very high taxes on consumption and capital income. The labor tax schedule has a high average rate but is also moderately progressive. We find an identical outcome when policy is instead determined by majority voting. Finally, we offer suggestive empirical evidence that households’ preferences for tax and redistribution are more strongly associated with political identity than economic status.

What drives the dynamics of the racial wealth gap? We answer this question using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium heterogeneous-agents model. Our calibrated model endogenously produces a racial wealth gap matching that observed in recent decades along with key features of the current cross-sectional distribution of wealth, earnings, intergenerational transfers, and race. Our model predicts that equalizing earnings is by far the most important mechanism for permanently closing the racial wealth gap. One-time wealth transfers have only transitory effects unless they address the racial earnings gap, and return gaps only matter when earnings inequality is reduced.

We provide a quantitative analysis of the distributional effects of the 2018 increase in tariffs by the US and its major trading partners. We build a trade model with incomplete asset markets and households that are heterogeneous in their age, income, wealth, and labor skill. When tariff revenues are used to reduce labor and capital income taxes and increase transfers, the average welfare loss from the trade war is equivalent to a permanent 0.1 percent reduction in consumption. Much larger welfare losses are concentrated among retirees and low-wealth and low-income workers, while only wealthy households experience a welfare gain.

What are the distributional consequences of tariffs? We build a trade model with incomplete asset markets and households that are heterogeneous in their income, wealth, and labor skill. We increase tariffs by 5 percentage points and examine several budget-neutral fiscal policies for redistributing tariff revenue. Without redistribution, tariffs hurt all households, but higher tradables prices disproportionately harm the poor and the ensuing decline in the skill premium disproportionately harms the skilled. With redistribution, lowering the labor income tax leads to lower economic activity but higher average welfare relative to lowering the capital income tax; nevertheless, both policies reduce average welfare with retaliatory tariffs. Finally, when tariff revenue is rebated to households as lump-sum transfers, tariffs can be welfare improving even with full retaliation.

We reconcile the large and persistent racial wealth gap with the smaller racial earnings gap, using a general equilibrium heterogeneous-agents model that matches racial differences in earnings, wealth, bequests, and returns to savings. Given initial racial wealth inequality in 1962, our model attributes the slow convergence of the racial wealth gap primarily to earnings, with much smaller roles for bequests or returns to savings. Cross-sectional regressions of wealth on earnings using simulated data produce the same racial gap documented in the literature. One-time wealth transfers have only transitory effects unless they address the racial earnings gap.

Why do high-income black households live in neighborhoods with characteristics similar to those of low-income white households? We find that neighborhood sorting by income and race cannot be explained by financial constraints: High-income, high-wealth black households live in similar-quality neighborhoods as low-income, low-wealth white households. We provide evidence that black households sort across neighborhoods according to some non-pecuniary factor(s) correlated with the racial composition of neighborhoods. Black households sorting into black neighborhoods can explain the racial gap in neighborhood quality at all income levels. The supply of high-quality black neighborhoods drives the neighborhood quality of black households.

We study the political determination of flat tax systems using a workhorse macroeconomic model of inequality. There is significant variation in preferred tax policy across the wealth and income distribution. The majority voting outcome features (i) zero labor income taxation, (ii) simultaneous use of capital income and consumption taxation, and (iii) essentially zero transfers. This policy is supported by a coalition of low- and middle-wealth households. Zero labor income taxation is supported by households with below average wealth, while the middle-wealth households prefer to keep the transfer (and thus other tax rates) low. We also show that the outcome is sensitive to assumptions about the voting power of household groups, the degree of wealth and income mobility, and the forward-looking nature of votes.

How are the gains and losses from trade distributed across individuals within a country? First, we document that tradable goods and services constitute a larger fraction of expenditures for low-wealth and low-income households. Second, we build a trade model with nonhomothetic preferences—to generate the documented relationship between tradable expenditure shares, income, and wealth—and uninsurable earnings risk—to generate heterogeneity in income and wealth. Third, we use the calibrated model to quantify the differential welfare gains and losses from trade along the income and wealth distribution. In a numerical exercise, we permanently reduce trade costs so as to generate a rise in import share of GDP commensurate with that seen in the data from 2001 to 2014. We find that households in the lowest wealth decile experience welfare gains over the transition, measured by permanent consumption equivalents, that are 57 percent larger than those in the highest wealth decile.

How are the gains and losses from trade distributed across individuals within a country? First, we document that tradable goods and services constitute a larger fraction of expenditures for low-wealth and low-income households. Second, we build a trade model with nonhomothetic preferences—to generate the documented relationship between tradable expenditure shares, income, and wealth—and uninsurable earnings risk—to generate heterogeneity in income and wealth. Third, we use the calibrated model to quantify the differential welfare gains and losses from trade along the income and wealth distribution. In a numerical exercise, we permanently reduce trade costs so as to generate a rise in import share of GDP commensurate with that seen in the data from 2001 to 2014. We find that households in the lowest wealth decile experience welfare gains over the transition, measured by permanent consumption equivalents, that are 67 percent larger than those in the highest wealth decile.

How are the gains and losses from trade distributed across individuals within a country? First, we document that tradable goods constitute a larger fraction of expenditures for poor households. Second, we build a trade model with nonhomothetic preferences—to generate the documented relationship between tradable expenditure shares, income, and wealth—and uninsurable earnings risk—to generate heterogeneity in income and wealth. Third, we use the calibrated model to quantify the differential welfare gains and losses from trade along the income and wealth distribution. In a numerical exercise, we permanently reduce trade costs so as to generate a rise in import share of GDP commensurate with that seen in the data from 2001 to 2014. We find that households in the lowest wealth decile experience welfare gains over the transition, measured by permanent consumption equivalents, that are 67 percent larger than those in the highest wealth decile.

Why do high-income blacks live in neighborhoods with characteristics similar to those of low-income whites? One plausible explanation is wealth, since homeownership requires some wealth, and black households hold less wealth than white households at all levels of income. We present evidence against this hypothesis by showing that wealth does not predict sorting into neighborhood quality once race and income are taken into account. An alternative explanation is that the scarcity of high-quality black neighborhoods increases the cost of living in a high-quality neighborhood for black households with even weak race preferences. We present evidence in favor of this hypothesis by showing that sorting into neighborhood racial composition is similar across wealth levels conditional on race and income.

In a model with a worker-capitalist dichotomy, we show that the relationship between inequality (measured as a ratio of incomes for the two types) and growth is complicated; zero growth generally lowers inequality, except under extreme parameterizations. In particular, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor in production needs to be considerably greater than 1 in order for income inequality be higher with zero growth. If this condition is not met, factor prices adjust strongly causing the fall in the return to capital (the rise in wages) to reduce income inequality. Our results extend to models with endogenous growth.

We study the determination of flat tax systems using a workhorse macroeconomic model of inequality. Our first result is that, despite the multidimensional policy space, equilibrium policies are typically unique (up to a fine grid numerical approximation). The majority voting outcome features (i) zero labor income taxation, (ii) simultaneous use of capital income and consumption taxation, and (iii) generally low transfers. We discuss the role of three factors—the initial heterogeneity in sources of income, the mobility of income and wealth, and the forward-looking aspect of voting—in determining the equilibrium mix of taxes.

This paper studies short-run wealth mobility in a heterogeneous agents, incomplete-markets model. We include features commonly used in the literature to capture wealth inequality and find that they do little to improve the model's performance for wealth mobility. Finally, we introduce state-contingent assets, which allow households to partially span the space of labor productivity. Moving toward a more "complete" market lowers wealth mobility unless the labor income process is very persistent.

This paper studies related counterfactual policies using an overlapping-generations dynamic general equilibrium model of residential sorting and intergenerational human capital accumulation.

A study of the effects on inequality of a "Piketty transition" to zero growth.

We study the tax systems that arise in a once-and-for-all majority voting equilibrium embedded within a macroeconomic model of inequality.

A study of the effects on inequality of a "Piketty transition" to zero growth.

This paper uses an overlapping-generations dynamic general equilibrium model of residential sorting and intergenerational human capital accumulation to investigate the effects of neighborhood externalities.

This paper uses an overlapping-generations dynamic general equilibrium model of residential sorting and intergenerational human capital accumulation to investigate the effects of neighborhood externalities.

This paper uses an overlapping-generations dynamic general equilibrium model of residential sorting and intergenerational human capital accumulation to investigate the effects of neighborhood externalities.

This paper examines the degree of income tax progressivity chosen through a simple majority vote in a model with savings.

This paper compares the steady state outcomes of revenue-neutral changes to the progressivity of the tax schedule.

This paper studies sunspot fluctuations in a model with heterogeneous households.

Research shows Black and Hispanic households often face choosing between a neighborhood’s like population share and its SES, possibly limiting both labor market potential for them and the economy.

This update confirms previous findings that large upward movements in wealth are associated with families’ owning businesses and real estate other than a primary residence.

Homeownership presents an opportunity to accumulate wealth, making it an appealing vehicle for reducing wealth inequality. We find that the opportunity for leveraged returns can lead to wealth gains among lower-income households but note that homeownership for low-income homeowners carries risks that are higher for them than for high-income homeowners.

Some Black households live in neighborhoods with lower incomes than their own incomes might suggest, and this may impede their economic mobility. We investigate possible reasons and find that differences in financial factors do not explain racial distributions across neighborhoods. Our findings indicate other factors such as discrimination in the housing market, racial hostility, and social networks are at work.

Mean (or headline) PCE inflation has typically fallen below median PCE inflation, and since 2012 the difference has been large. To understand the reasons for this trend, we investigate which components of the headline measure are contributing to the difference. We find that energy components, which frequently undergo wide price swings, and electronics, which have been steadily decreasing in price for decades, explain most of the difference between the two inflation measures. We argue that the outsized impacts of such components on headline PCE inflation reinforce the need for policymakers to consider both headline and median PCE inflation measures.

Although increased international trade is widely viewed as beneficial to the economies of the participating countries, the benefits are not distributed evenly across individuals within those countries, and indeed some individuals may bear a cost. We discuss two channels through which trade can affect individuals differently depending on their skill and income levels and assess the combined impact of those channels. We find that the effects of trade on the labor market and the effects of trade on prices go in opposite directions and are of similar magnitude.

We introduce two new measures of trend inflation, a median PCE inflation rate and a median PCE excluding OER inflation rate, and investigate their performance. Our analysis indicates that both perform comparably to other simple trend inflation estimators such as the trimmed-mean PCE. Furthermore, we find that the performance of the median PCE is related to skewness in the distribution of cross-sectional growth rates across categories in the PCE, and our results suggest that the Bowley skewness statistic may be useful in forecasting.

Most studies of the persistent gap in wealth between whites and blacks have investigated the large gap in income earned by the two groups. Those studies generally concluded that the wealth gap was “too big” to be explained by differences in income. We study the issue using a different approach, capturing the dynamics of wealth accumulation over time. We find that the income gap is the primary driver behind the wealth gap and that it is large enough to explain the persistent difference in wealth accumulation. The key policy implication of our work is that policies designed to speed the closing of the racial wealth gap would do well to focus on closing the racial income gap.

Using data on families’ wealth over time, we calculate changes in relative wealth mobility; that is, how likely families are to move up or down the wealth distribution, relative to one another. We find families have become less likely to change their position in the wealth distribution over time, and those that do move are less likely to go very far. We also look at the savings behaviors that are associated with more mobile families and find that families that make large movements through the wealth distribution appear to be more likely to own some form of a risky asset.

We document changes in a measure of income mobility over the past 40 years, a period in which income inequality has increased. We find a modest level of movement through the distribution, particularly across generations.

Using too basic a model to study the relationships between wealth and income inequality and long-run economic growth may lead to questionable conclusions. So we use a more complex model.

While it seems a simple problem to estimate the effect of government spending on output-the size of the government multiplier-it is anything but.

The intended effects of a government policy can be distorted by the public’s expectations about how strictly it will be enforced.

The United States is not the first advanced modern economy to face a serious federal budget challenge. A number of countries have seen their debt rise to unacceptable levels in recent decades, and they have taken steps to rein it in.

The spring issue of Forefront, the Cleveland Fed’s policy magazine, explores the troubles facing state and local government finances.

Frequently asked questions about inflation ranging from how to achieve price stability to the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate to how to gauge when people are concerned about inflation.