Topics in Macroeconomics: Wealth Distributions, Taxation and Redistribution

Seminar 2nd (or higher) semester

Master in International Economics & Public Policy (MIEPP)

Teaching staff: Alexander Bloch and Klaus Wälde

Seminar announcement

Properties of the distributions of income, consumption or wealth for a certain
country have always received a lot of public interest. This is equally true for
research in labour economics, public economics and macroeconomics. While
the rise in wage inequality has been a very much studied topic at least since the
1990s, understanding the distribution of wealth and consumption has interested
macroeconomists also for a very long time and much more so in the very recent
past.

When thinking about taxation and redistribution, one needs to first understand
why there are distributions in the first place. Afterwards, one needs to
understand how economic policy affects these distributions. While some
analyses in the literature try to work both with endogenous distributions and
then study the effects of redistributive policies, this is rarely the case. Most
papers treat one or the other issue.

The objective of the seminar consists in understanding the determinants of the
distribution of wealth and in understanding how taxation can help redistributing
wealth. More background on the structure and literature is available here.

Time Schedule

* Introductory session (compulsory attendance) and topic assignment: Tuesday 26 April, 9.15 a.m. - 10.45 a.m. (room: 01-115 (PC-Lab), old ReWi)

* Submission deadline for seminar papers: Friday 24 June, by 12:00 p.m. (noon).

Please hand in one stapled paper version to Chair`s secretariat (room 01-116, old ReWi) and send a pdf-file by Email to albloch(at)uni-mainz.de.

* Presentations: Thursday 30 June

Time: 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Room: HS V

* Please see our guidelines for seminar participants