We study the effects of corporate taxes on income inequality. Using state corporate taxes as a setting, we provide evidence that corporate tax cuts lead to increases in income inequality. This result is robust across regression, matching, and synthetic controls approaches, and to controlling for a host of potential confounders. We use Statistics of Income data from the Internal Revenue Service to explore mechanisms behind this result. We find that tax cuts lead to higher income for both top and bottom earners, but the gains to capital income for top earners exceed the gains to total income for bottom earners. This result suggests that although all earners appear to benefit from a corporate tax cut, the relation between tax cuts and inequality is positive, in part, because high-income individuals shift their compensation to reduce taxes.
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Faculty
- Academic Areas
- Awards & Honors
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Conferences
- Accounting Summer Camp
- California Econometrics Conference
- California Quantitative Marketing PhD Conference
- California School Conference
- China India Insights Conference
- Homo economicus, Evolving
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Initiative on Business and Environmental Sustainability
- Political Economics (2023–24)
- Scaling Geologic Storage of CO2 (2023–24)
- A Resilient Pacific: Building Connections, Envisioning Solutions
- Adaptation and Innovation
- Changing Climate
- Civil Society
- Climate Impact Summit
- Climate Science
- Corporate Carbon Disclosures
- Earth’s Seafloor
- Environmental Justice
- Finance
- Marketing
- Operations and Information Technology
- Organizations
- Sustainability Reporting and Control
- Taking the Pulse of the Planet
- Urban Infrastructure
- Watershed Restoration
- Junior Faculty Workshop on Financial Regulation and Banking
- Ken Singleton Celebration
- Marketing Camp
- Quantitative Marketing PhD Alumni Conference
- Rising Scholars Conference
- Theory and Inference in Accounting Research
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Research Labs & Initiatives
- Cities, Housing & Society Lab
- Corporate Governance Research Initiative
- Corporations and Society Initiative
- Golub Capital Social Impact Lab
- Policy and Innovation Initiative
- Rapid Decarbonization Initiative
- Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative
- Value Chain Innovation Initiative
- Venture Capital Initiative
- Behavioral Lab
- Data, Analytics & Research Computing