Politics and income tax: Progress and progressivity

This article begins with a review of the literature on political economy approaches to the taxation of labour income. The authors focus on recent advances achieved through a detailed examination of the specific properties of derived non-linear taxes in the context of voting. The authors then present new findings concerning the existence of majority voting. Finally, they examine how these recent theoretical findings help to shed light on empirical trends observed over the last 50 years in the US tax system, namely a sharp fall in the highest marginal tax rates, the rise of the Earned Income Tax Credit and increased progressivity in the middle of the income distribution.