Author: Mary Eschelbach Hansen
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Assessing the Economic Effects of Extending and Increasing the QBI Deduction
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) introduced a tax deduction of 20% of qualified business income (QBI) for pass-through businesses. This provision is set to expire at the end of 2025, but Republican lawmakers have proposed both extending it and increasing the deduction to 23%. This brief describes IMPA’s evaluation of the proposal.…
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IPD Conference on New Tax Policy | May 2025
IMPA, jointly with the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) at Columbia University, hosted a one-day academic symposium to explore new tax policy strategies in light of the upcoming expiration of the TCJA provisions in 2025. This workshop was held at Columbia University on Friday, May 2, 2025. Participants in the symposium informally discussed the major…
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Preliminary Estimates of the Macroeconomic Costs of Cutting Federal Funding for Scientific Research
Federal agencies such as NIH and NSF are critical sources of funding for basic and applied scientific research. Recently, many of these agencies have seen their research operations frozen or downsized. This brief describes a new analysis of the macroeconomic costs of cutting federal funding for scientific R&D. The brief finds that budget cuts to…
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Assessing the Effects of Keeping Top Individual Income Tax Rates Low
The TCJA cut income taxes on top earners from 39.6% to 37%, among other changes. This brief assesses the macroeconomic impact of making the TCJA tax cut on top earners permanent compared to letting it expire and compared to raising it. IMPA’s assessment shows that permanent extension of the TCJA tax cut on top earners…
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Tax Policy, Inequality, and the Future of the American Economy | April 2025
On April 23, 2025, IMPA and the Department of Economics hosted a timely conversation about the future of U.S. economic policy — and the democratic and institutional values that underpin it. Featured Participants Joseph E. Stiglitz University Professor, Columbia University; Nobel laureate in Economics; Founder and Co-President, Initiative for Policy Dialogue; Board Member, IMPA Ilyana…
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Macroeconomics and Climate Change | March 2025
In this invited lecture, Professor Linus Mattauch, Robert Bosch Juniorprofessor at Technical University of Berlin, provided an overview of the fast-evolving field of field, including a summary of his own research agenda, which covers a wide range of topics at the intersection of inequality, climate policy, and sustainable development.
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Technical Note on the Economics of Taxing Capital Gains
This technical note describes how, under the current system of capital gains taxation, capital gain income is taxed at lower rates than labor income—and only upon realization of the gains and with a step-up in basis at death. This system distorts the economy and contributes to inequality. Lower tax rates on capital gains income do…
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Taxing Excessive Profits: Designing a Pro-Competition Corporate Tax System
This brief, authored by Ira Regmi and Niko Lusiani, lays the groundwork for a pro-competition corporate income tax system, emphasizing the economic rationale for taxing the excess profits of large U.S. businesses. A preliminary draft was shared to kick off the IMPA-RI co-organized expert convening at American University in October 2024
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Promoting Equity and Efficiency: Rethinking Corporate Taxation to Address Market Power | October 2024
This closed-door convening brought together experts from academia and policy circles to explore the design of a corporate tax system that effectively balances efficiency and equity. Hosted by the Institute for Macroeconomic Policy Analysis and co-organized with the Roosevelt Institute, the event focused on strategies for crafting a truly pro-competition corporate income tax framework. A…
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Equity Prices, Market Power, and Optimal Corporate Tax Policy
This academic paper studies the optimal design of corporate tax policy in a textbook life-cycle model featuring two key deviations: (i) firms are imperfectly competitive and (ii) households save by purchasing equity shares in a stock market. In this simple environment, the financial wealth of savers is equal to the sum of the productive capital…