scholarly journals Rediscovering the 1%: Economic Expertise and Inequality Knowledge

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
National Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Top Incomes ◽  
Labor's Share ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
Wage Disparities ◽  
Distribution Of Income

In the 2000s, academics and policymakers began to discuss the growth of topincomes in the United States, especially “the 1%” Newly analyzed tax datarevealed that top incomes had begun a dramatic upward climb in the early1980s. This article investigates why it took two decades for this increaseto become politically and academically salient. I show how expertsassembled two “regimes of perceptibility” for producing knowledge aboutincome inequality, and that neither was capable of tracking top incomes.Macroeconomists focused on labor’s share of national income, but ignoredthe distribution of income between individuals. Labor economists drew onnewly avail- able survey data to explain wage disparities. By relying onsurveys, these scholars unintentionally eliminated top incomes from view:surveys top-coded high incomes and thus were incapable of detecting therise of the 1%. Studies of top incomes that relied on income tax data fellby the wayside, creating the conditions under which experts, policymakers,and the public alike could be surprised by the rise of the 1%. Thishistorical study offers insights into the political power of economicexpertise by clarifying the complex linkages between observations, stylizedfacts, causal theories, and policy attention.

War without Citizens

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Rosow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Advanced Technologies

Contestation over war memorialization can help democratic theory respond to the current attenuation of citizenship in war in liberal democratic states, especially the United States. As war involves more advanced technologies and fewer soldiers, the relation of citizenship to war changes. In this context war memorialization plays a particular role in refiguring the relation. Current practices of remembering and memorializing war in contemporary neoliberal states respond to a dilemma: the state needs to justify and garner support for continual wars while distancing citizenship from participation. The result is a consumer culture of memorialization that seeks to effect a unity of the political community while it fights wars with few citizens and devalues the public. Neoliberal wars fought with few soldiers and an economic logic reveals the vulnerability to otherness that leads to more active and critical democratic citizenship.

scholarly journals Are Price-Cost Markups Rising in the United States? A Discussion of the Evidence

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanto Basu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Marginal Cost ◽  
Cost Minimization ◽  
National Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Aggregate Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
Labor's Share

A number of recent papers have argued that US firms exert increasing market power, as measured by their markups of price over marginal cost. I review three of the main approaches to estimating economy-wide markups and show that all are based on the hypothesis of firm cost minimization. Yet different assumptions and methods of implementation lead to quite different conclusions regarding the levels and trends of markups. I survey the literature critically and argue that some of the startling findings of steeply rising markups are difficult to reconcile with other evidence and with aggregate data. Existing methods cannot determine whether markups have been stable or whether they have risen modestly over the past several decades. Even relatively small increases in markups are consistent with significant changes in aggregate outcomes, such as the observed decline in labor’s share of national income.

scholarly journals What the Australian Public Knows About the High Court

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-63
Author(s):  
Ingrid Nielsen ◽  
Russell Smyth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Role ◽  
High Court Of Australia

Existing studies for the United States examine the extent to which the public is knowledgeable about US courts, arguing that knowledge of the courts is linked to public support for their role. We know little, though, about the Australian public’s awareness of the High Court of Australia. We report the results of a survey of a representative sample of the Australian adult population, administered in November 2017. We find that few Australians know the names of the Justices, the number of Justices on the Court, how the Justices are appointed or for how long they serve. Awareness of recent cases decided by the Court is mixed. We find that age and education are better predictors of awareness levels than is gender. Our findings are important because in the absence of awareness of the High Court, the potential exists for the public to see the Court as having a more overt political role than it has, which may lower esteem for the Court. The potential for this to occur is exacerbated if, and when, politicians attempt to drag the High Court into the political fray, by attributing political motives to it that it does not have.

Color Bind: Lessons from the Failed Homeland Security Advisory System

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob N. Shapiro ◽  
Dara Kay Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Homeland Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Alert System ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
The Public ◽  
Advisory System ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Protective Actions ◽  
National Leaders

An effective terrorism alert system in a federal government has one central task: to motivate actors to take costly protective measures. The United States' color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) failed in this mission. In federal systems, national leaders cannot compel protective actions by setting an alert level; they must convince constituent governments and private parties that the desired actions are worth the costs. Such beliefs can be generated either by sharing the information behind an alert or by developing enough confidence in the alert system that the government's word alone suffices. The HSAS did neither, largely because it was not designed to generate confidence. Rather, the system's creators assumed that the public would trust the national leadership and believe in the utility of the system's information. Over time, as the HSAS became increasingly perceived as politically manipulated, there was no built-in mechanism to recover confidence in the system. An alternative, trust-based terrorist alert system could solve this problem. Building on the notion of “procedural fairness” from the psychological and legal traditions, this system would retain the political advantages of the HSAS, facilitate greater compliance among the requisite actors, and ameliorate many of the strategic problems inherent in terror alert systems.

scholarly journals Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data *

2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 519-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Saez ◽  
Gabriel Zucman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Wealth Concentration ◽  
Top Incomes ◽  
Tax Returns

Abstract This paper combines income tax returns with macroeconomic household balance sheets to estimate the distribution of wealth in the United States since 1913. We estimate wealth by capitalizing the incomes reported by individual taxpayers, accounting for assets that do not generate taxable income. We successfully test our capitalization method in three micro datasets where we can observe both income and wealth: the Survey of Consumer Finance, linked estate and income tax returns, and foundations’ tax records. We find that wealth concentration was high in the beginning of the twentieth century, fell from 1929 to 1978, and has continuously increased since then. The top 0.1% wealth share has risen from 7% in 1978 to 22% in 2012, a level almost as high as in 1929. Top wealth-holders are younger today than in the 1960s and earn a higher fraction of the economy’s labor income. The bottom 90% wealth share first increased up to the mid-1980s and then steadily declined. The increase in wealth inequality in recent decades is due to the upsurge of top incomes combined with an increase in saving rate inequality. We explain how our findings can be reconciled with Survey of Consumer Finances and estate tax data.

scholarly journals Interest Relief on Income Tax Debts: Canada Versus the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 931-986
Author(s):  
Michael H. Lubetsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Voluntary Disclosure ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Fair Compensation ◽  
Willingness To Use ◽  
Tax Court ◽  
The Comparative Study

Subsection 220(3.1) of the Income Tax Act authorizes the minister of national revenue to waive or cancel interest on income tax debts. This power is typically exercised in four circumstances: where interest has accumulated owing to circumstances beyond a taxpayer's control; where the interest has accumulated owing to error or delay by the Canada Revenue Agency; where the accumulated interest causes hardship; or in the context of a voluntary disclosure. South of the border, section 6404 of the Internal Revenue Code authorizes the secretary of the Treasury to "abate" interest on tax debts. As a practical matter, discretionary interest relief under section 6404 is available only in very limited circumstances. The restrictive approach to discretionary interest relief is, however, offset by a greater array of interest-relieving provisions, as well as by the power of the secretary to "compromise" tax liabilities on various grounds, some of which overlap with grounds for interest relief recognized in Canada. This article compares the Canadian and US interest relief regimes, with a view to identifying aspects of the US regime that may merit further consideration in Canada. The differences in the US approach that are of particular interest include • a wider, and arguably more coherent, range of relieving provisions applicable to interest, particularly with regard to interest netting and carrybacks; • the jurisdiction of the United States Tax Court to review refusals to abate interest and/or to accept an offer in compromise; • dealing with situations of hardship and extraordinary circumstances under the aegis of the offer-in-compromise regime, which allows for consideration of the underlying tax liability in addition to the interest, and which also allows for relief to be made conditional on the taxpayer's future compliance with filing and payment obligations; • in certain older cases, a willingness to use interest relief to settle longstanding and complex tax disputes; and • the absence of statutory time limits on the power of the secretary to abate or compromise interest. The comparative study also reveals how Canada and the United States place different weight on policy rationales that underlie interest relief. Canada focuses mainly on ensuring that the consequences of non-compliance for individual taxpayers are fair and equitable. The United States, on the other hand, focuses more on rehabilitating non-compliant taxpayers in the long term, as well as ensuring that interest reflects fair compensation for such taxpayers' use of the public treasury's money—both of which could be given greater attention on this side of the border.

scholarly journals Reconsidering the Minimum Voting Age in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Oosterhoff ◽  
Laura Wray-Lake ◽  
Daniel Hart
Keyword(s):  
Life Experience ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Us States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Voting Age

Several US states have proposed bills to lower the minimum local and national voting age to 16 years. Legislators and the public often reference political philosophy, attitudes about the capabilities of teenagers, or past precedent as evidence to support or oppose changing the voting age. Dissenters to changing the voting age are primarily concerned with whether 16 and 17-year-olds have sufficient political maturity to vote, including adequate political knowledge, cognitive capacity, independence, interest, and life experience. We review past research that suggests 16 and 17-year-olds possess the political maturity to vote. Concerns about youths’ ability to vote are generally not supported by developmental science, suggesting that negative stereotypes about teenagers may be a large barrier to changing the voting age.

Creating the New System

2021 ◽  
pp. 146-160
Author(s):  
David Madland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
The Public ◽  
System P ◽  
Union Policy ◽  
Labor System ◽  
New System ◽  
Intellectual Climate

This chapter explores whether a new labor system could ever become law and overcome the massive political hurdles standing in the way. The path to victory is quite narrow. There needs to be sufficient grassroots activism to push labor issues to the top of the agenda, a strong majority of politicians willing to vote for pro-union policy, champions to drive the policy forward, and a favorable intellectual climate. As difficult as these are to achieve, they are possible if favorable trends continue and rise in intensity. The public must increasingly and more forcefully demand change, and the political and intellectual climate must continue shifting in favor of labor modernization. The chapter concludes by echoing the theme of the book — that a new labor system with broad-based bargaining and encouragement for union membership would help address the fundamental economic and political challenges that the United States faces. The more people recognize this, the better the chances for creating a new labor system.

scholarly journals Reconsidering the Minimum Voting Age in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162199422
Author(s):  
Benjamin Oosterhoff ◽  
Laura Wray-Lake ◽  
Daniel Hart
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Voting Age

Several U.S. states have proposed bills to lower the minimum local and national voting age to 16 years. Legislators and the public often reference political philosophy, attitudes about the capabilities of teenagers, or past precedent as evidence to support or oppose changing the voting age. Dissenters to changing the voting age are primarily concerned with whether 16- and 17-year-olds have sufficient political maturity to vote, including adequate political knowledge, cognitive capacity, independence, interest, and life experience. We review past research that suggests 16- and 17-year-olds possess the political maturity to vote. Concerns about youths’ ability to vote are generally not supported by developmental science, suggesting that negative stereotypes about teenagers may be a large barrier to changing the voting age.

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