Essays on dynamic agency, inequality and optimal taxation
2018-08
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
Essays on dynamic agency, inequality and optimal taxation
Authors
Published Date
2018-08
Publisher
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
The distributions of both income and wealth in the United States are heavily skewed to the right, with tails that may be well approximated by power laws. Further, business owners are disproportionately represented at the top of these distributions and are exposed to a high degree of idiosyncratic risk. This thesis explores the extent to which these facts together suggest imperfect risk-sharing remediable through government policy, by characterizing efficient allocations and long-run inequality in two dynamic economies that separately analyze different factors affecting business output. The first chapter focuses on the role of human capital and the second on physical capital. In each case I assume business ownership is subject to a dynamic agency problem, with the utility of each firm owner and the output of their firm depending upon actions observable only to themselves. To induce owners to increase output, their consumption must depend upon the performance of their firm, and this limits the extent to which risk may be shared across society. In each environment I calculate the degree of long-run inequality consistent with maximizing average welfare, subject to the restrictions imposed by technological constraints and the presence of asymmetric information. I then explore how these allocations may be implemented when agents may trade assets in decentralized markets and taxes are imposed on various forms of income.
Keywords
Description
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. August 2018. Major: Economics. Advisor: Christopher Phelan. 1 computer file (PDF); ii, 139 pages.
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Series/Report Number
Funding information
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Suggested citation
Phelan, Thomas. (2018). Essays on dynamic agency, inequality and optimal taxation. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/201124.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.