Recently published articles

For some reason, Tax Prof Blog just now linked to my article, "The Mapmaker's Dilemma in Evaluating High-End Inequality," which came out a few months ago, so I will add the link here too.

To some extent the article merely summarizes and runs through some of the main issues associated with high-end inequality, but a few of the main points it makes that I think are useful are:

(1) the importance of distinguishing between high-end and low-end inequality (issues of plutocracy and poverty, respectively). Once one gets past thinking that the only issue posed is the declining marginal utility of a dollar, one comes to realize that the respective issues, while in some ways overlapping, are very distinct and not mirror images of each other.

(2) the centrality of issues outside the standard public economics / optimal income tax toolbox for evaluating high-end inequality. (This is my excuse for taking the approach in my book in progress about literature and high-end inequality. The Mapmaker's article was originally meant to be more or less the same as chapter 2 of the book, but I'm not leaning against using it in the book.)

(3) use of the "mapmaker" metaphor to discuss the issues posed by using simple and restrictive, versus more complex and inclusive, social science models. As should be obvious but is sometimes forgotten, the merits of the tradeoffs depend on the context and the question being asked.

Other pieces that I wrote some time ago but that have been published recently include:

--"The More It Changes, the More It Stays the Same?: Automatic Indexing and Current Policy," in Levmore and Fagan, The Timing of Lawmaking. The book on Amazon is here, and a working paper version of my chapter is here.

--"Taxing Potential Community Members' Foreign Source Income." Just came out as 70 Tax Law Review 75-110 (2016); working paper version available online here.

I tend to forget about a given project once I've finished it, but I suppose a large part of the whole point is to encourage people to read it. (I do indeed write both for myself and for an anticipated audience.)