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Wage inequality, labor income taxes, and the notion of social status

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  • Bilancini, Ennio
  • Boncinelli, Leonardo
Abstract
The authors investigate the desirability of income taxes when the objective is to mitigate wasteful conspicuous consumption generated by people's status-seeking behavior. They consider the joint role of pre-tax wage inequality and of social norms determining how social status is assigned. They find that when social status is ordinal (i.e., only one's rank in the income distribution matters) inequality and taxation are substitutes. Instead, when status is cardinal (i.e., also the shape of the income distribution matters) inequality and taxation can be complements, although the relationship is in general non-monotonic. This is because the value of social status is endogenous, potentially giving rise to a perverse self-reinforcing mechanism where more waste in conspicuous consumption induces a greater competition for status and viceversa.

Suggested Citation

  • Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo, 2019. "Wage inequality, labor income taxes, and the notion of social status," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-35.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifweej:201932
    DOI: 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2019-32
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    Cited by:

    1. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo, 2020. "When today’s rewards are tomorrow’s endowments: The effects of inequality on social competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    2. Gallice, Andrea, 2018. "Social status, preferences for redistribution and optimal taxation: A survey," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-17.
    3. Ferrari, Luca, 2018. "Social limits to redistribution and conspicuous norms," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-21.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social status; relative standing; consumption externalities; labor income; income tax; signalling; conspicuous consumption; income inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

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