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This paper begins with a survey of the literature on the political economy approaches to labor income taxation. We focus on recent progress made by examining in detail the specific properties of non-linear taxes derived in the context of voting. Next, we present new results on the existence of majority voting equilibrium that unify work in the standard framework. Finally, we discuss how recent theoretical results help us uncover empirical patterns from the last 50 years in the US tax system, namely a sharp decrease in top marginal tax rates, the rise of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and increased progressivity in the middle of the income distribution.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-3-eup-10.1177_14651165221098541 for European fiscal reform preferences of parliamentarians in France, Germany and Italy by Sebastian Blesse, Massimo Bordignon, Pierre C Boyer, Piergiorgio Carapella, Friedrich Heinemann, Eckhard Janeba and Anasuya Raj in European Union Politics

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-eup-10.1177_14651165221098541 for European fiscal reform preferences of parliamentarians in France, Germany and Italy by Sebastian Blesse, Massimo Bordignon, Pierre C Boyer, Piergiorgio Carapella, Friedrich Heinemann, Eckhard Janeba and Anasuya Raj in European Union Politics

Supplemental material, sj-doc-6-eup-10.1177_14651165221098541 for European fiscal reform preferences of parliamentarians in France, Germany and Italy by Sebastian Blesse, Massimo Bordignon, Pierre C Boyer, Piergiorgio Carapella, Friedrich Heinemann, Eckhard Janeba and Anasuya Raj in European Union Politics

We develop a two-period model of redistributive politics in which two politicians compete in an election in each period. In the first period, the politicians propose both whether to experiment with an efficient reform with uncertain benefits and choose the amount of public debt. Politicians also allocate pork-barrel spending to voters in each period. We show that allowing politicians to raise debt ensures that the reform is always implemented when the reform’s ratio of private good to public good gains exceeds a threshold, i.e. the reform generates enough private good benefits. This is not the case when the reform’s ratio of private good to public good gains is below this threshold. We also examine hard and a soft debt limits, and find that both limits reduce the political success of the reform. However, at moderate debt levels soft limits dominate hard limits with respect to equilibrium efficiency of reform provision.

Using data from a unique survey of members of parliaments in France, Germany and Italy in 2018, we estimate the effects of three dimensions on EU and euro area fiscal reform preferences: nationality, political ideology, and populism. We predict and confirm that a German populist party on the right is most opposed to a more developed European fiscal union, while a non-populist politician on the political left in France or Italy is most integrationist. Furthermore, the relative position of French and Italian policymakers is issue dependent and the Left dimension outweighs the German dimension in two out of seven reform issues. Finally, populism intensifies the polarizing impact of national interests.

We study the Gilets jaunes movement, which blocked most of France off in November 2018. We first analyze the complementarity/substitutability between the different forms of mobilization and find that blockades were planned online and later reinforced online activism. Second, we do textual analysis and show that online discussions evolved from local concerns to widespread critique. Finally, while the Gilets jaunes refused to designate candidates for the subsequent European elections, we ask whether the movement had electoral consequences nonetheless. We show that blockades boosted the performance of the government's party in its bastions, except when they nurtured further online dissent.

The design of redistributive tax policies is an evergreen in the public discourse. This column proposes a new approach for the political economy analysis of tax policies based on examining the political support for reforms in contrast to the tax systems themselves. Focusing on monotonic tax reforms, it demonstrates that such reforms are only supported by a majority of the population if the voter with median income is among the beneficiaries. It also yields predictions on how sequences of politically feasible reforms should affect marginal taxes: (1) a shift towards lower marginal tax rates, even negative ones, for below median incomes; (2) pronounced progression for close to median incomes; and (3) a shift to higher and higher marginal tax rates for top earners, unless tax rates in the status quo are already over the top of the Laffer curve.

We study reforms of non-linear income tax systems from a political economy perspective. We present a median voter theorem for monotonic tax reforms, reforms so that the change in the tax burden is a monotonic function of income. We also provide an empirical analysis of tax reforms, with a focus on the US. We show that past reforms have, by and large, been monotonic. We also show that support by the median voter was aligned with majority support in the population. Finally, we develop sufficient statistics that enable to test whether a given tax system admits a politically feasible reform.

The "multicrisis" of European integration from the euro debt crisis through the migration dispute to Brexit has kicked-off a comprehensive reform debate. This debate covers the evolution of European Monetary Union (EMU) institutions, the division of competencies between the EU and Member States, and reforms to the decision making and financing of the EU. While there is a wealth of innovative ideas across all these dimensions, the hurdles for a far-reaching reform are high, as they require a consensus among veto players. In this policy brief, we document descriptive insights of a unique recent survey among the national parliaments of the three largest Member States of the post-Brexit EU: France, Germany and Italy. Any far-reaching EMU or EU reform will have to be approved by the national parliaments of Member States. A consensus between these three countries is definitely not a sufficient condition for the political feasibility of a reform but most likely it amounts to a necessary one. The survey on the future of European integration was conducted in the national parliaments of France, Germany and Italy, including the French Senate and Assemblée Nationale, the German Bundestag, and the Italian Camera dei Deputati and Senato della Repubblica. The survey was sent out in September 2018 and responses arrived until January 2019. It covers the three mentioned reform dimensions, i.e. the division of competencies between the European and national level, EMU reforms and the future of EU finance and decision making. Der europäische Integrationsprozess wird gleich von mehreren Krisen erschüttert - der Euro-Schuldenkrise, der Flüchtlingsfrage und dem Brexit-Konflikt - , was eine umfassende Reform-Debatte ausgelöst hat. Bei dieser Debatte geht es sowohl um die Entwicklung der Institutionen der Europäischen Währungsunion (WWU), die Aufteilung von Kompetenzen zwischen der EU und den Mitgliedstaaten als auch um Reformen bezüglich der Entscheidungsfindung und der Finanzierung innerhalb der EU. Obwohl es zu all diesen Themen eine Fülle innovativer Ideen gibt, sind die Hürden für weitreichende Reformen dennoch hoch, da sie einen Konsens unter allen Veto-Mächten erfordern. Dieser Policy Brief fasst die Erkenntnisse aus einer kürzlich durchgeführten einzigartigen Umfrage zusammen, die unter den nationalen Parlamenten der drei größten Mitgliedstaaten der Post-Brexit-EU vorgenommen wurde. Jede weitreichende WWU- oder EU-Reform muss von den nationalen Parlamenten der Mitgliedsstaaten genehmigt werden. Ein Konsens unter diesen drei Ländern ist daher eine notwendige Bedingung für die politische Umsetzbarkeit einer solchen Reform. Die Umfrage zur Zukunft der europäischen Integration wurde in den nationalen Parlamenten in Frankreich, Deutschland und Italien durchgeführt, darunter in der französischen Nationalversammlung und im Sénat, im Deutschen Bundestag sowie in der italienischen Camera dei deputati und dem Senato della Repubblica. Die Umfrage lief von September 2018 bis Januar 2019. Sie umfasst die drei genannten Reformdimensionen, d.h. die Aufteilung der Zuständigkeiten zwischen der europäischen und der nationalen Ebene, WWU-Reformen und die Zukunft der Finanzierung und Entscheidungsfindung innerhalb der EU.

Supplemental Material for European Monetary Union reform preferences of French and German parliamentarians by Sebastian Blesse, Pierre C Boyer, Friedrich Heinemann, Eckhard Janeba and Anasuya Raj in European Union Politics

We analyze data from an author-conducted survey of members of the French and German parliaments on European Monetary Union reform preferences. We consider three potential drivers of preferences: nationality, ideology, and personal characteristics. For European Monetary Union policies like Eurobonds, the Fiscal Compact and the European Central Bank asset purchase program we find a robust difference between parliamentarians of both countries if they belong to the same party family and controlling for individual characteristics. Based on our estimates, however, we predict agreement between German left-wingers and French conservatives even for ideological differences that are smaller than the current difference between the left and the right European party families. Our findings suggest that deeply-rooted national differences do not impose a prohibitive obstacle to a German-French parliamentary consensus on European Monetary Union policies. This Version: February 12, 2019

We investigate whether the decision to experiment with novel policies is influenced by electoral incentives. Our empirical setting is the U.S. welfare reform in 1996, which marked the most dramatic shift in social policy since the New Deal. We find that electoral incentives matter: governors with strong electoral support are less likely to experiment with policies than governors with little electoral support. Yet, governors who cannot be reelected experiment more than governors striving for reelection. The importance of electoral incentives is robust to controlling for governor ideology, voter preferences for redistribution, the influence of the legislature, or for learning among states. A comparison of the role of governor ideology and electoral incentives reveals that both contribute about equally to policy experimentation.

We present a conceptual framework for the analysis of politically feasible tax reforms. First, we prove a median voter theorem for monotonic reforms of non-linear tax systems. This yields a characterization of reforms that are preferred by a majority of individuals over the status quo and hence politically feasible. Second, we show that every Pareto-efficient tax systems is such that moving towards lower tax rates for below-median incomes and towards higher rates for above median incomes is politically feasible. Third, we develop a method for diagnosing whether a given tax system admits reforms that are welfare-improving and/ or politically feasible.