Abstract: Abstract This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on micro data from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop — incomes rise and the labor market transitions from subsistence agriculture towards salaried work in industry and services — child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. Because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on economic development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero.

Abstract: La question du partage de la valeur est de retour dans le débat public avec le projet de loi portant transposition de l’accord national interprofessionnel relatif au partage de la valeur au sein de l’entreprise, qui prévoit d’étendre l’obligation de mise en place d’un mécanisme dans les entreprises de moins de 50 salariés. Dans cette nouvelle Note du CAE, Maria Guadalupe, Camille Landais et David Sraer présentent les dispositifs de distribution de la valeur ajoutée en France et proposent une évaluation de l’impact de ces dispositifs sur les salaires, les performances des entreprises et les finances publiques. Ils soulignent que la substitution entre ces dispositifs de partage de la valeur et les salaires est le point central pour déterminer leur efficacité et que cette substitution varie selon les dispositifs en place. Pour poser les jalons d’une vraie politique du partage de la valeur et éviter les effets d’aubaine, ils recommandent de privilégier un dispositif unique idéalement assis sur une formule simple, transparente et clairement adossée à la profitabilité de l’entreprise (comme la participation obligatoire) mais dont les paramètres pourraient être négociés au niveau des branches ou même des entreprises.

Abstract: We study the history and geography of wealth accumulation in the US, using newly collected historical property tax records since the early 1800s. The property tax in the US was a comprehensive tax on all kinds of properties (real estate, personal property, and financial wealth), making it one of the first “wealth taxes.” Drawing on a multitude of historical records, we construct wealth series at the city, county, and state levels over time offering a consistent, high-frequency, and long-term database of wealth in the US. We first document the long-term evolution of household wealth in the US since the early 1800s, showing that the US experience an extraordinary spur of wealth accumulation after the Civil war and until the Great Depression. Before the Civil war, enslaved people were assessed as personal property of the enslavers, which is both morally abhorrent and implies wrongly counting forced labor income flows as capital. The regional distribution of wealth and the effects of the Civil war look very different if we do not count enslaved people as property. Second, we study the spatial inequality in the US over the long run. The initial distribution of property and subsequent growth over 60 years are strongly correlated with geographic, economic, and demographic factors. In particular, wealth inequality has a robust negative correlation with growth in property over the long run. Finally, we study the role of public policy, specifically the property tax (i.e., a “wealth tax”) on local capital accumulation, using the large and long variation in property tax rates across more than 300 municipalities. We find significant elasticities on the intensive and extensive (migration) margins, as well as evidence for tax competition between cities.

Abstract: This paper analyzes consumption to evaluate the distributional effects of pension re- forms. Using Swedish administrative data, we show that on average workers who retire earlier consume less while retired and experience larger drops in consumption around retirement. Interpreted via a theoretical model, these findings imply that reforms incentivizing later retirement incur a substantial consumption-smoothing cost. Turning to other features of pension policy, we find that reforms that redistribute based on early-career labor supply would have opposite-signed redistributive effects, while differentiating on wealth may help to target pension benefits toward those who are vulnerable to larger drops in consumption around retirement.

Abstract: Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and child care, using administrative data covering the labor market and birth histories of Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s, including the introduction of maternal leave benefits in 1961, on the full dynamics of male and female earnings. We then use these causal estimates to compute gender inequality series for counterfactual scenarios regarding the evolution of family policies. Our results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and child care subsidies have had virtually no impact on gender convergence.

Abstract: After a period of relatively strong economic and social mobility during the post-WWII decades, labor income is now quickly losing its capacity to fuel mobility across the wealth distribution of Western economies, with inheritance becoming again the main determinant of individuals’ ability to make it to the top of the wealth distribution. At a time where inheritance taxation therefore seems desirable from both equity and efficiency standpoints, most inheritance tax systems are broken. They have failed to be truly progressive, and have remained very unpopular among the public. In this paper, we propose general principles to guide an in-depth reform of inheritance tax systems, to make them more efficient, progressive and transparent. Using administrative survey data from France, we also discuss whether the revenue generated by these reforms can promote equality of opportunities, by guaranteeing a wealth endowment for all. Based on detailed simulations, we explain why inheritance taxation alone cannot deal with the current dynamics of concentration of wealth at the top of the distribution, and why it needs to be complemented by progressive taxation of wealth and/or capital income.