Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51674 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5910
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We assess the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality by applying a new decomposition method that allows us to disentangle mechanical effects due to changes in pre-tax incomes from direct effects of policy reforms. While tax reforms implemented under Democrat administrations, in particular the EITC reforms in the 1990s and the ARRA in 2009, had an equalizing effect at the lower half of the distribution, the disequalizing effects of Republican reforms are due to tax cuts for high-income families. As a consequence of partisan politics, overall policy effects almost cancel out over the whole time period.
Subjects: 
tax policy
inequality
redistribution
political economy
Great Recession
JEL: 
H23
H31
H53
P16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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