Seminario "Meet the Oligarchs: Business Legitimacy, State Capacity and Taxation"

Miércoles 22 de noviembre, 17h

Presentado por Juan Dubra
Paper Abstract
We study the impact of two dimensions of trust, namely trust in business elites and trust in government, on policy preferences. Using a randomized online survey, we find that our two treatments are effective in changing trust in Major Companies and in Courts/Government. In contrast to previous work, we find that distrust causes an increase in desired taxes on the top 1%. For example, our treatment decreasing trust in business elites causes an increase in desired taxes of 1.2 percentage points (it closes 14% of the Democrat-Republican gap in tax preferences), and is double that amount when trust in government is low. Similarly, more distrust leads to more desired regulation and less private-public sector meetings, a variable we argue is connected to State capacity. A model with inefficient taxation, where people tax to punish corrupt business leaders (rather than to redistribute income), helps interpret these findings. 

Juan Dubra Ph.D. in Economics, NYU. Professor at Universidad de Montevideo. His research focuses on Decision Theory, Game Theory and Applied Game Theory. Juan has recently been elected as a Fellow of the Econometric Society,.

Lugar: Buenos Aires
Contacto: Cecilia Lafuente