Merton Finkler

Author: Merton Finkler

Great Stagnation or Leap Forward? Which will it be?

In a recent article in Forbes, contributor Nick Shulz asks what the “new normal” for economic growth in the U.S. will be. On one side, we find Tyler Cowen (The Great Stagnation) and Robert Gordon (“Is U.S. Economic Growth Over?…”) arguing that the technological low hanging fruit have been picked and that the future will feature economic growth similar to what existed before the industrial revolution (that is, well below 1% per year.)

On the other side of the debate, Race Against the Machine authors Bryjolfsson and McAfee and authors of the new volume The 4% Solution, published by the Bush Institute, suggest that the future will be brighter than the past.

Which do you believe?  On which future would you bet? Why?

 

Scary Stories (to Tell in the Dark)

In Monday’s Financial Times – of course, no US newspaper would publish it – Stephen Roach, former chair of Morgan Stanley Asia and present senior fellow at Yale University, describes a scenario that might take place if 1) Mitt Romney is elected and 2) he follows through on what he said would be his first order of business.  I encourage you to read this opinion piece in full.  Here are the pertinent details.

1. Romney declares China guilty of currency manipulation.

2. Romney proposes and Congress passes the Defend America Trade Act of 2013 (DATA2013 for short.)

3. Negotiations between the US and China fail so the US slaps a 20% tariff on all Chinese products entering the US.

4. Beijing interprets this action as economic warfare and files a complaint with the WTO.

5. Not willing to wait until the WTO dispute process plays out and given the large number of plants closed in China, China’s Ministry of Commerce introduces a 20% tariff on all U.S. exports (roughly $104B worth in 2011.)

6. Walmart announces average price increases of 5% and other retailers follow suit.

7. The Fed extends its commitment to zero interest rate policies to 2015 (ZIRP.)

8. Financial market swoon, and Romney and Congress up the tariffs on China by another 10%.

9. China publicly announces it will no longer buy US treasuries.

10. Both the US and Chinese economies tank.

 

Is this scenario just the ghosts of Smoot and Hawley (authors of the infamous Tariff Act of 1930) arising to exhort their contemporary counterparts in Congress or is this just a nightmare that will fade when Stephen Roach and I wake up?

This is clearly the “dark” side of public policy making.  But, where’s the “light” or enlightened side? I don’t see any.

 

Water Policy for People

In this TEDx talk ,  economist and aguanomics blogster David Zetland contrasts key differences between “push” systems in which water policies control people’s use of water with “pull” systems that are decentralized and encourage water trades to both improve efficiency and equity.  The technology of the talk isn’t terrific, but the ideas are worthy of attention.

Federal Budget Parameters

Politicians pontificate profusely about their prodigious plans for procuring Federal budget sanity.  For the most part, their potential policy projectiles miss the mark.  In an essay in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Budget** But Were Afraid to Ask,”  David Wessel highlights six key facts that will constrain the efforts of these pugilistic pundits.

1. “Nearly two-thirds of annual federal spending goes out the door without any vote by Congress.”

2. “The U.S. defense budget is greater than the combined defense budgets of the next 17 largest spenders.”

3. “About $1 of every $4 the federal government spends goes to health care today. That is rising inexorably.”

4. “Firing every federal government employee wouldn’t save enough to cut the deficit in half.”

5. “The share of income most American families pay in federal taxes has been falling for more than 30 years.”

6. “The federal government borrowed 36 cents of every dollar it spent last year, but had no trouble raising the money.”

These “facts” form the basis for Wessel’s new book to be published next week and should inform political debate.  I won’t hold my breath regarding the latter point.  The cartoon reflects an earlier time period, but the political dynamics today, as characterized in the cartoon, still obtain.

When Will “Contained Depression” End?

In Monday’s Financial Times, economics editor Martin Wolf explains why the “end” will not be soon.  He notes that it has been almost five years since the beginning of our contemporary financial turmoil,  if one marks such by the first major sign of sub-prime mortgage problems in the U.S.  He characterizes the past five years as ones if which policies (both monetary and fiscal) have been very aggressive; yet economies – US, Europe and Japan – have been stagnant.  David Levy describes such a situation as a “contained depression”; that is, these economies feature excessive leverage (debt), especially in household and financial sectors and expansionary macroeconomic policy.  Stated differently, the private sector continues to de-leverage (reduce its debt level) while governments attempt to counter such counter-cyclical demand with public borrowing and money creation.  The two have, in fact, been connected, as central banks purchase much of the newly created governmental debt.  In short – remember the world of IS-LM – there is no crowding out.  The charts below show the depth of the problem.

The lower right hand graph shows that private sector debt in the US has come off its peak (of 296% of GDP in 2008) by roughly 17% (250% of GDP) about where the economy was in 2003.  If Reinhardt and Rogoff are correct, we have at least two more years to go, given that an “average” balance sheet recession last seven years. If the mid-1990s feature a stable debt to GDP ratio, of just under 200% of GDP, we are only half-way “home.”  In terms of economic growth, clearly, the Eurozone has yet to recover; while, the US and Germany have just barely exceeded their previous GDP peak (in 2007) – see upper left graph.

According to Wolf,

We know that big financial crises cast long shadows, particularly in countries whose underlying rate of growth is modest, which makes de-leveraging slow. Policy must both sustain demand and facilitate de-leveraging. This means aggressive monetary and fiscal policies, working in combination, along with interventions aimed at recapitalising banks and accelerating restructuring of private debt.

Policies designed to bring down public debt prior to the end of private de-leveraging will dampen economic growth and extend the period of adjustment.  Though public fiscal consolidation is necessary for long run stability, if it is not crafted to be consistent with an economic growth path that can meet the required debt service, economic stagnation or worse will be the order of the day.

Wolf concludes that

Far too much policy making and advice neither recognises the post-crisis challenges nor crafts effective answers. The heart of the matter is accelerating de-leveraging, while promoting recovery. By that standard, the policies now in place are, alas, very far from good enough.

 

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and Health Care

Given that it’s election season (again), the twin topics of jobs and health care will be upon us ad nauseum.  Employmnet in health care fields has grown rapidly since the passage of Medicare in 1965 (see the chart in the article cited below.)  Is this a good thing?  If the health care industry is terrific at creating jobs, why don’t we just spend continuously more on health care (as we in the U.S. have done steadily for at least the past 60 years)?

In the current issue of that most famous of medical journals, The New England Journal of Medicine, Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra explain why such a policy is a terrible way to increase the economic welfare of Americans.  The argument is pretty straight forward for any student of economics, though not necessarily for the political cognoscenti.

But this focus on health care jobs is misguided. The goal of improving health and economic well-being does not go hand in hand with rising employment in health care. It is tempting to think that rising health care employment is a boon, but if the same outcomes can be achieved with lower employment and fewer resources, that leaves extra money to devote to other important public and private priorities such as education, infrastructure, food, shelter, and retirement savings.

They provide two graphs to illustrate the strong correlation between employment growth and cost per year of life expectancy gained (not easily transported to this blogpost).  Now, clearly, correlation does not imply causation, and there certainly are health outcomes of interest in addition to life expectancy, but careful studies of such relationships suggest strong diminishing returns to devoting a larger and larger share of our workforce to health care services.

Keynes argued that we could increase employment and spending by hiring one group of people to dig holes in the ground and another to fill the holes back up.  Although this might increase expenditures and employment in the short run, without productivity increases to generate income, such workers would have to be paid out of existing production, and thus, such income generation would not yield sustainable improvements.  Baicker and Chandra make a similar point.

The bottom line is that employment in the health care sector should be neither a policy goal nor a metric of success. The key policy goals should be to achieve better health outcomes and increase overall economic productivity, so that we can all live healthier and wealthier lives. Our ability to ensure access to expensive but beneficial treatment is hampered whenever health care policy is evaluated on the basis of jobs. Treating the health care system like a (wildly inefficient) jobs program conflicts directly with the goal of ensuring that all Americans have access to care at an affordable price.

So what does this have to do with yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling?  Who knows?  It all depends upon how the legislation is implemented and how people respond to incentives provided.

Paul Krugman – The Economist Pushes Through

For most of his editorial postings, Paul Krugman’s opinions are political in character and offer limited if any economic analysis.  In today’s posting in The Conscience of a Liberal , Krugman demonstrates why his insights are worthy of a Nobel laureate in economics.  In particular, he discusses what the literature on optimal currency unions has to contribute to discussion of the Eurozone.  He draws insights from economists of various stripes regarding the necessary criteria for a successful currency union and how the Euro falls well short of what’s needed.

In summary, optimum currency area theory suggested two big things to look at – labor mobility and fiscal integration. And on both counts it was obvious that Europe fell far short of the U.S. example, with limited labor mobility and virtually no fiscal integration. This should have given European leaders pause – but they had their hearts set on the single currency.

He notes that most economists forecast that the Eurozone would have problems holding together given the above criteria.

So optimum currency area theory was right to assert that creating a single currency would bring significant costs, which in turn meant that Europe’s lack of mitigating factors in the form of high labor mobility and/or fiscal integration became a very significant issue. In this sense, the story of the euro is one of a crisis foretold.

Krugman does provide some options for Europeans to consider but isn’t optimistic that this political project will succeed.  In short political will or perhaps wishing thinking is not enough.  The economic fundamentals can’t be ignored.

The creation of the euro involved, in effect, a decision to ignore everything economists had said about optimum currency areas. Unfortunately, it turned out that optimum currency area theory was essentially right, erring only in understating the problems with a shared currency. And now that theory is taking its revenge.

Elinor Ostrom, R.I.P.

2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Science winner and political scientist Elinor Ostrom passed away this week.  Her contributions to solving common pool resource problems generated praise from both economists and political scientists.  In today’s The New York Times Economix blog, Catherine Rampell provides numerous links to help people understand her valuable contributions.

In particular, I encourage you to read Edward Glaeser’s review of the contributions of both economics prize winners in 2009:  Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson.

 

 

Is it 1931 in Germany Again?

The article described below was published yesterday in Spiegel, a well known German periodical.

Economic historian Niall Ferguson (who typically takes a long term view of economic forces) and economist Nouriel Roubini (who some know as Dr. Doom for his prognostication in 2005 of the housing bust and subsequent financial crisis) have gotten together to argue that the  toxic mix of contemporary economic and political forces could generate both economic and political chaos for Europe.  They suggest a variety of steps that they believe could both resolve the unstable conflicts presently in existence and be palatable to all stakeholders, if they desire to sustain (or expand) the integration of Europe.   In brief there recommendations are as follows:

1.  Banks should be recapitalized by direct (rather than indirect) means  – similar to the TARP program in the U.S.

2.  A deposit insurance program should be constructed – similar to the FDIC program in the US

3.  Funding of 1 and 2 should be through means that minimize moral hazard burdens for tax-payers and avoid the creation of “too-big-to-fail” institutions.

4.  Fiscal austerity should be built into a long run plan but should not be implemented in the current economic context.

5.  Economic growth needs to be the number one priority.

6.  Public policy should employ all available tools – monetary, fiscal, barrier reducing, and infrastructure increasing – to boost income and consumption.

The article begins as below.  For the full piece, follow the link at the bottom of this posting.

The Perils of Ignoring History: This Time, Europe Really Is on the Brink
—————————————————————–

The European Union was created to avoid repeating the disasters of the 1930s, but Germany, of all countries, has failed to learn from history.  As the euro crisis escalates, Berlin should remember how the banking crisis of 1931 contributed to the breakdown of democracy across Europe. Action is urgently needed to stop history from repeating itself.

A Commentary by Niall Ferguson and Nouriel Roubini

Incentives Matter!

As many of have heard on numerous occasions, Steven Landsburg has argued that economics can be characterized by just two words: “Incentives Matter.”

Today’s Carpe Diem blog (provided by Mark Perry) provides some rich examples.

Some great examples of unintended consequences from the Wikipedia listing for “Perverse Incentives”:
1. In Hanoi, under French colonial rule, a program paying people a bounty for each rat pelt handed in was intended to exterminate rats. Instead, it led to the farming of rats.

2. 19th century palaeontologists traveling to China used to pay peasants for each fragment of dinosaur bone (dinosaur fossils) that they produced. They later discovered that the peasants dug up the bones and then smashed them into many pieces,greatly reducing their scientific value, to maximize their payments.

3. Opponents of the Endangered Species Act in the US argue that it may encourage preemptive habitat destruction by landowners who fear losing the use of their land because of the presence of an endangered species, known as “shoot, shovel, and shut up.”

4. In the former Soviet Union, managers and employees of glass plants were at one time rewarded according to the tons of sheet glass produced. Not surprisingly, most plants produced sheet glass so thick that one could hardly see through it. The rules were changed so that the managers were rewarded according to the square meters of glass produced. The results were predictable. Under the new rules, Soviet firms produced glass so thin that it was easily broken.

5. Private companies were paid to transport convicts/prisoners from the U.K. to Australia during the late 1700s and the early 1800s.  The first payment schedule was based on the number of prisoners who boarded ships in the U.K. As you might imagine, there was no incentive to deliver living prisoners to Australia, and many of them died during the trip, due to overcrowding, lack of food and water, unsanitary and unsafe conditions, untreated diseases, etc. The payment schedule later changed, and was subsequently based on the number of living prisoners delivered to Australia. Result?  Fewer prisoners died during transport.

How Would Keynes Solve the Eurozone Crisis?

In honor of Brad Bateman’s visit tomorrow, today’s opinion piece in the Financial Times poses an answer to the question above from two other Keynesian scholars, Robert Skidelsky and Marcus Miller.  You may or not be able to access this piece directly from the Financial Times.  First try here and if that doesn’t work, try here.

For those of you who want “to cut to the chase,” the short answer is as follows:

Eurozone countries must be allowed to grow again. For a country in such desperate straits as Greece, however, orderly exit from the euro to regain competitiveness looks to be the best option. But it is in the interest of both Greece and its creditors that the resulting devaluation be controlled. We must not add currency wars to our present pile of problems.

I will have more to say about this in future postings.

What Should Central Bankers Do?

No, this is not a question on the final exam  for Money and Monetary Policy; however, it has been.  It’s also a question that pervades contemporary political economy in the US and Europe.

Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Benanke continues to be criticized from both those who advocate aggressive monetary policy and those who argue that the Fed has been too aggressive.  For example, today’s Wall Street Journal features “Fed bashing” from the House Financial Services Committee.

The Fed’s easy-money policy and actions taken to boost economic growth have prevented lawmakers from taking responsibility for shoring up the economic recovery and reducing the deep federal budget deficit, some Republicans said Tuesday at a hearing of a panel of the House Financial Services Committee.

“As the Fed does more, Congress is doing less and in the long term that slows our recovery,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas).

How are we to interpret this?  Mr. Bernanke, since you did your job appropriately, we won’t (can’t?) do ours??  Of course, many pundits, especially those who fear a tripling of the Fed’s balance sheet since 2008, believe that the world would be better without the Fed.  Anyone ever heard of Ron Paul?

At the other extreme, Paul Krugman, not to be outdone in the world of political rhetoric Earth to Bernanke, has accused Fed Chair Bernanke of not following the advice that Professor Bernanke gave the Japanese in a 2000 paper.  He and others such as Scott Sumner of the Modern Monetarist Movement argue that the Fed should target nominal GDP and make monetary policy as expansionary as needed to reach that target.’

Where’s the center or at least some non-extreme view?  I suggest one look to Raghuram Rajan who yesterday posted “Central Bankers Under Siege” and for the current issue of Foreign Affairs wrote “True Lessons of the Recession.”  In these articles, Rajan argues that various versions of demand stimulus through credit creation will not address fundamental structural problems in the US economy.  He concludes the latter article as follows:

The industrial countries have a choice. They can act as if all is well except that their consumers are in a funk and so what John Maynard Keynes called “animal spirits” must be revived through stimulus measures. Or they can treat the crisis as a wake-up call and move to fix all that has been papered over in the last few decades and thus put themselves in a better position to take advantage of coming opportunities. For better or worse, the narrative that persuades these countries’ governments and publics will determine their futures — and that of the global economy.

So, what should Central Bankers do?  In my view, they should recognize that monetary policy has its limits and that using monetary policy as a means to generate sustained employment won’t work.  Longer term structural adjustments are required.  Such adjustments will be the subject of another blog posting.

 

A Third Industrial Revolution: Innovation in Manufacturing

The April 21, 2012 issue of The Economist features a special report on the revival of manufacturing in the so-called developed world.  But this won’t be my father’s or even your father’s world of manufacturing.  As with many areas of our economy, it will require skilled workers who know how to manipulate contemporary machines such as three dimensional printers to create new products and meet existent and new consumer needs.  Traditional laborers with tools such as those portrayed above won’t be featured.  Nor will outsourcing to countries with cheaper labor, the pattern over the past 20 years, be prominent.  The rewards will go to those who can innovate and use their entrepreneurial skills to best meet people’s needs.  I encourage you to read (or listen to) the entire report (accessible here ), sign up for courses in our Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (posted here), or enroll in the ACM Chicago program on Business, Entrepreneurship and Society.

This transformation of manufacturing is well underway but opportunities abound as those of you who went on this year’s LSB Chicago trip saw and heard (thank you Professor Galambos).  As the Special report concludes:

Millions of small and medium-sized firms will benefit from new materials, cheaper robots, smarter software, and an abundance of online services and 3D printers.

 

Deidre McCloskey on Keynesian Pessimism

Quotation of the Day…  from Cafe Hayek

Posted: 29 Apr 2012 05:01 AM PDT

… is from page 134 of Deirdre McCloskey’s 2010 Bourgeois Dignity:

During the 1930s and early 1940s the prospect of diminishing returns deeply alarmed economists such as the British economist John Maynard Keynes and the American follower of Keynes at Minnesota and Harvard, Alvin Hansen.  They believed that the technology of electricity and the automobile were exhausted, and that sharply diminishing returns to capital were at hand, especially in view of declining birthrates.  People would save more than could be profitably invested, the “stagnationists” believed, and the advanced economies would fall into chronic unemployment.  In line with the usual if doubtful claim that spending on the war had temporarily saved the nonbombed part of the world’s economy, they believed that 1946 would see a renewal of the Great Depression.

But it didn’t.  Stagnationism proved false.

The Triumph of the City

The above title is not just the title of Edward Glaeser’s book, which Econ 250 (Urban Economics) students will discuss later this term.  It’s also the theme of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in a commentary in yesterday’s Financial Times.  Bloomberg argues that more than half of the world’s population presently lives in cities and that people in these places generate roughly 80% of global GDP.  As a result, he claims that “cities cannot afford to cede their futures to national governments.”  They must think about what makes them  competitive – a topic that is at the center of Econ 250.

Bloomberg goes on to argue that “for cities to have sustained success, they must compete for the grand prize: intellectual capital and talent.”  This theme echoes Glaeser’s focus on the skilled city.  Why is this important?  Glaeser shares Bloomberg’s view “that talent attracts capital far more effectively and consistently than capital attracts talent.”  Glaeser points out that cities should give priority to spending money on building human capital and fostering innovation and entrepreneurship rather than on new structures and transportation technology.

Bloomberg goes on to discuss what continues to make New York attractive and, at least according to one study, “the most competitive city in the world.”  He concludes “cities must be cool, creative, and in control.”

Abundance, not Stagnation, Characterizes the Future

If you believe that Tyler Cowen has appropriately declared the end of serious economic growth in the so-called “developed world,” check out the work of Peter Diamandis.  If you fervently disagree with Cowen’s view, also check out Diamondis.  In Abundance, the Future is Better than You Think, Diamondis (with co-author Steven Kotler) calls upon human ingenuity and innovation as the drivers of future abundance.  No Peak Oil here.  He reminds me of Julian Simon (the Ultimate Resource ) who challenged Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb) in a famous 1980 bet on the price of various metals and natural resources.  Spare the 16 minutes it takes to watch Diamandis give a Ted talk.

What Did Larry Summer’s Say About Women’s Ability to Succeed in the Sciences?

Last Thursday at our weekly discussion of specific works in economics, we discussed Backhouse and Bateman’s book, Keynes: Capitalist Revolutionary. At one point in our discussion, Professor Gerard asked which economist today might be viewed as Keynes was in his heyday.  One reasonable answer was Larry Summers who, as noted here, has held numerous positions including the presidency at Harvard University.  Are there other reasonable answers?  I think so.  Paul Krugman might be a good candidate for a “contemporary” Keynes.

Despite interest in who might be today’s Keynes, this posting addresses remarks that Summers made January 14, 2005 at the NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce.  Asked to be provocative, Summers did not disappoint.  What did he say? I strongly encourage you to read the full speech (go here) which contains carefully constructed cautions and references. He posits, in order of strength, three reasons why women are less prominent in scientific fields.

1. Differences between men and women in terms of their willingness to make the incredible time commitments of high powered jobs.

2. Differences between men and women in “availability of aptitude at the high end”

3. Differences between men and women in terms of socialization and patterns of discrimination.

The controversy focuses on the second reason which he states more fully as follows:

It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population.

Stated differently, he presents some evidence for the claim that there are more males than females at both the high and low end of the distribution of mathematical and scientific ability.  This is a statement about variance, not about means. I believe, as does Claudia Goldin, “whose own research has examined the progress of women in academia and professional life” , that Summer’s arguments are constructive food for thought and deserve serious reflection.

My suspicion is that few people have read Summers’ remarks but have settled for the soundbites that have found their way into the popular media.  A liberal arts education should encourage you not to settle for these inflammatory simplifications.

 

 

 

Is 2013 a Ripe Time for Fundamental U.S. Tax Reform?

Yes, trumpets Lawrence Summers in today’s Financial Times. Presumably, anyone who pays any attention to the Washington scene knows Larry Summers.  Just in case you haven’t been paying any attention for the past 20 years, the bullet point version of Summers’ CV might read as follows:

  • Harvard Professor of Economics
  • Chief Economist of the World Bank
  • Secretary of Treasury under President Clinton
  • President of Harvard University
  • Chief Economic Adviser to President Obama

Few people – economists, policy analysts, or politicians – defend the current tax codes filled with huge inequities in both horizontal and vertical directions (as argued here.)  Tax “loopholes,” tax expenditures (CBO estimates), or societal preferences – if you care to be generous – reduce taxable income by at least $800 billion per year.  Stated differently, if all special provisions (i.e., everything but the personal exemption) of the U.S. tax code were eliminated, income tax revenue would rise to at least $2 trillion and cover about two-thirds of the estimated U.S. Federal deficit for 2012.

So what makes 2013 so special?  Summers gives a variety of intriguing answers including the following:

  • President Bush’s tax cuts expire
  • Congress faces its mandated sequester of $1.2 trillion spending for the next decade
  • Congress must again vote on the legally binding Federal borrowing limit
  • Fundamental reform can happen in the year after a Presidential election
  • The last serious tax reform took place in 1986 (when a Republican President reached agreement with a Democratic legislature)

As Summers argues,equity, efficiency, and budgetary reasons all dictate that we need to fundamentally reform the tax structure.  The longer we wait, the more difficult the choices will be. If (when?) the rest of the world decides it no longer has a voracious appetite for U.S. Treasuries, our choices will be much more painful.  He argues, and I agree, a good place to start would be the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission appointed by President Obama, which unfortunately in my view, he chose not to back vigorously.

The Federal Income Tax is Both Horizontally and Vertically Inequitable

In today’s Economix blog, Bruce Bartlett argues that our Federal income tax burden violates two fundamental economic principles.  Although the tax system on average is progressive (in the sense that households in higher income groups pay on average proportionately higher tax rates than those in lower income groups), it violates both horizontal and vertical equity.  Horizontal equity requires that people with the same income and circumstances should pay the same tax rate.  Vertical equity usually is interpreted to mean that those with greater ability to pay (higher income and all else equal) should pay higher tax rates.  As the chart below, taken by Bartlett from the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisors Report for 2012, shows numerous inequities exist.

The chart should be read horizontally.  For those in the middle quintile (40-60% levels) of income, the average income tax rate ranges from 1.7% to 23.5%.  For those in the top 1% bracket, the range is from 8.7% to 34.6%.  Clearly horizontal inequity exists within each quintile and vertical inequity exists across quintiles, since many in higher quintiles pay a lower rate than many in lower quartiles.

These results arise because different incomes are taxed differently.  Those whose incomes are attributed to labor face higher rates than those whose income can be attributed to capital.  This is especially pertinent for investment fund managers who are paid in capital gains rather than salary.  Not only do they pay a lower income tax rate than those with the same level of income but they also avoid some payroll taxes assessed against wages and salary income.

Any serious attempt at tax reform should directly confront these inequities not only for “fairness” reasons but because the income tax system provides strong incentives that distort the allocation of labor and human capital toward favored categories, many of which benefited greatly over the past decade.