Cold Progression and its Effects on Income Distribution

Burkhard Heer and Bernd Süssmuth

No 951, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We present new empirical evidence for the US economy that inflation reduces the inequality of the earnings distribution. The main mechanism emphasized in this paper is the tax income bracket effect. Governments only adjust the nominal income tax brackets slowly to a rise in prices, typically less often than once every other year in the US post-war history. We also develop a theoretical general equilibrium monetary model with income heterogeneity. In this model, the effect of higher inflation on income distribution is shown to be rather small. However, we find that a longer duration between two successive adjustments of the income tax schedule reduces employment, savings, and output significantly.

Keywords: cold progression; inflation; income distribution; tax income brackets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo_wp951.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_951

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().