CAREER: Tax Progressivity and American Political Economy

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案公法111-5资助的。美国是唯一一个没有公共资助的国民医疗保健或强制性国民健康保险的发达工业国家，它的公共福利国家是西方世界中最小的国家之一，因此，美国的贫困和经济脆弱性比其他富裕国家更严重。但大多数人惊讶地发现，美国还拥有发达工业国家中最先进的累进税制。近年来，学者们质疑两者是否可以相互解释：20世纪上半叶建立起来的相对更为累进的税收制度是否限制了福利国家在20世纪下半叶的发展。税收制度的累进性与福利国家的广泛性之间的关系也适用于其他国家。最近的学术研究表明，在发达工业国家，税收累进率与福利努力之间存在负相关关系。但学者们对这种负相关的含义仍然存在分歧，没有人在美国或其他任何国家追溯其历史。在这个项目中，PI将评估几个假设，这些假设旨在解释税收制度的累进性与福利国家的能力之间的负相关关系。PI将完成一项比较历史分析，以追溯这一悖论的根源，并研究税收在美国经济发展中的作用。教育部分包括与研究生和本科生研究助理团队合作，培训更广泛的财政社会学学者群体。后者将通过与社会科学史协会年会同时举行的为期五年的讲习班来完成。更广泛的影响这项研究将澄清与税收有关的美国和比较政治经济学的各个方面，并将为在美国引入全国性消费税的可行性和可取性的辩论提供信息。暑期研究所将为其他大学的研究生提供财政社会学培训。

SES-0847725Monica PrasadNorthwestern UniversityThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Public Law 111-5).The United States is the only advanced industrial country without publicly financed national health care or compulsory national health insurance, it has a public welfare state that is one of the smallest in the western world, and consequently there is more poverty and economic vulnerability in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries. But most people are surprised to learn that the U.S. also has the most progressive tax system of the advanced industrial countries. In recent years, scholars have questioned whether one explains the other: whether the relatively more progressive tax system, established during the first half of the twentieth century, constrained the development of the welfare state over the second half of the century. The relationship between the progressivity of the tax system and the extensiveness of the welfare state holds for other countries as well. Recent scholarship is showing an inverse correlation between tax progressivity and welfare effort across the advanced industrial world. But scholars remain divided as to the meaning of this inverse correlation, and no one has traced its history either in the U.S. or any other country. In this project the PI will assess several hypotheses designed to explain this inverse correlation between the progressivity of the tax system and the capacity of the welfare state. The PI will complete a comparative historical analysis to trace the roots of this paradox and to examine the role of taxation in the development of the American economy. The education component includes working with a team of graduate and undergraduate student research assistants and training a wider group of fiscal sociology scholars. The latter will be accomplished through workshops held over five years in conjunction with the Social Science History Association annual conference.Broader ImpactsThe research will clarify aspects of American and comparative political economy related to taxation, and will inform debate over the feasibility and desirability of introducing a national-level consumption tax in the U.S. The summer institutes will offer graduate students from other universities training in fiscal sociology.