Inequality in the Twenty-First Century
University of Michigan Law Review (2015 Forthcoming)
University of Chicago Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper No. 699
25 Pages Posted: 29 Aug 2014 Last revised: 11 Sep 2014
Date Written: August 27, 2014
Abstract
This essay is a Review of Piketty's much-reviewed Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Piketty's book, and then turns to discussion public pension plans (generally excluded from piety's data) as well as other publicly supplied goods. In the last Part, Piketty's ideas about wealth, or capital, taxation are considered. The criticism is that public choice considerations are largely ignored, as they are in much of the optimal tax literature. Some ideas for integrating these strands are offered.
Keywords: inequality, wealth taxation, public choice, Piketty, social security
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