EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber

N. Gregory Mankiw

Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics

Abstract: This essay discusses the policy debate concerning optimal taxation and the distribution of income. It begins with a brief overview of trends in income inequality, the leading hypothesis to explain these trends, and the distribution of the tax burden. It then considers the normative question of how the tax system should be designed. The conventional utilitarian framework is found to be wanting, as it leads to prescriptions that conflict with many individuals’ moral intuitions. The essay then explores an alternative normative framework, dubbed the Just Deserts Theory, according to which an individual’s compensation should reflect his or her social contribution.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Published in Eastern Economic Journal

Downloads: (external link)
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/34310083/w15846.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber (2010) Downloads
Working Paper: Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber (2010) Downloads
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:hrv:faseco:34310083

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Office for Scholarly Communication ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:34310083