(Contributing editors: Eric Schickler, R. Douglas Arnold, Gary Jacobson, Robert S. Erikson, Christopher Achen, Frances E. Lee, John Mark Hansen, Shigeo Hirano, James M. Snyder, Jr, Joshua D. Clinton, Ira Katznelson, John S. Lapinski, Sarah Binder, Stephen Ansolabehere, Maxwell Palmer, Benjamin Schneer, Eric M. Patashnik, Justin Peck, Katherine Levine Einstein, Jennifer Hochschild, Keith Krehbiel, David E. Price, David R. Mayhew)
Many political observers have expressed doubts as to whether America’s leaders are up to the task of addressing major policy challenges. Yet much of the critical commentary lacks grounding in the systematic analysis of the core institutions of the American political system including elections, representation, and the law-making process. Governing in a Polarized Age brings together more than a dozen leading scholars to provide an in-depth examination of representation and legislative performance. Drawing upon the seminal work of David Mayhew as a point of departure, these essays explore the dynamics of incumbency advantage in today’s polarized Congress, asking whether the focus on individual re-election that was the hallmark of Mayhew’s ground-breaking book, Congress: The Electoral Connection, remains useful for understanding today’s Congress. The essays link the study of elections with close analysis of changes in party organization and with a series of systematic assessments of the quality of legislative performance.
We study the incidence and the optimal design of nonlinear income taxes in a Mirrleesian economy with a continuum of endogenous wages. We characterize analytically the incidence of any tax reform by showing that one can mathematically formalize this problem as an integral equation. For a CES production function, we show theoretically and numerically that the general equilibrium forces raise the revenue gains from increasing the progressivity of the U.S. tax schedule. This result is reinforced in the case of a Translog technology where closer skill types are stronger substitutes. We then characterize the optimum tax schedule, and derive a simple closed-form expression for the top tax rate. The U-shape of optimal marginal tax rates is more pronounced than in partial equilibrium. The joint analysis of tax incidence and optimal taxation reveals that the economic insights obtained for the optimum may be reversed when considering reforms of a suboptimal tax code.
What are the properties of a good financial reporting regime? There are three broad approaches to defining better financial reporting based on attributes, goals, and practice. The first specifies some attributes of good reporting. A second approach is to focus on goals of society or of some specified individuals or groups. Looking to practice for guidance on defining and understanding the financial reporting regime is the third major approach. These three approaches – attributes, goals, and practice – are not mutually exclusive. It is unlikely that any one of them is entirely satisfactory by itself; they complement one another. Better Financial Reporting argues for such a syncretic attitude to financial reporting regime.