Two From the Tabarrok Brothers

 [[{“value”:”Maxwell Tabarrok offers an excellent review of an important paper. Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century is a 2018 paper by Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas, and Stefanie Stantcheva that provides some answers. They collect and clean new datasets on patenting, corporate and individual incomes, and state-level tax rates that extend back to the
The post Two From the Tabarrok Brothers appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

Maxwell Tabarrok offers an excellent review of an important paper.

Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century is a 2018 paper by Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas, and Stefanie Stantcheva that provides some answers. They collect and clean new datasets on patenting, corporate and individual incomes, and state-level tax rates that extend back to the early 20th century. The headline result: taxes are a huge drag on innovation. A one percent increase in the marginal tax rate for 90th percentile income earners decreases the number of patents and inventors by 2%. The corporate tax rate is even more important, with a one percent increase causing 2.8% fewer patents and 2.3% fewer inventors.

Especially useful is Max’s back of the envelope calculation putting this result in the context of other methods to increases innovation.

Read the whole thing.

For something completely different, Connor Tabarrok offers an update on Charlotte the Stingray:

A “miracle pregnancy” picked up by national news brought huge business to a small-town aquarium, but months after the famous stingray was due, there are still no pups. Are we being scammed by a fish?

I particularly liked this line:

Taking all of this into account, my stance is that even if they got it on, it’s unlikely that this shark will have to dish out any child support to Charlotte’s pups.

Read the whole thing.

Are MR readers more interested in tax policy or virgin birth stingrays? We shall see.

The post Two From the Tabarrok Brothers appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

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