TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mankiw,N. Gregory
AU  - Weinzierl,Matthew
TI  - The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14976
PY  - 2009
Y2  - May 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14976
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14976.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
N. Gregory Mankiw
Department of Economics
Littauer 223
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/495-4301
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: ngmankiw@fas.harvard.edu

Matthew C. Weinzierl
Harvard Business School
277 Morgan
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Tel: 617/495-6697
Fax: 617/496-5994
E-Mail: mweinzierl@hbs.edu
AB  - Should the income tax include a credit for short taxpayers and a surcharge for tall ones? The standard Utilitarian framework for tax analysis answers this question in the affirmative. Moreover, a plausible parameterization using data on height and wages implies a substantial height tax: a tall person earning $50,000 should pay $4,500 more in tax than a short person. One interpretation is that personal attributes correlated with wages should be considered more widely for determining taxes. Alternatively, if policies such as a height tax are rejected, then the standard Utilitarian framework must fail to capture intuitive notions of distributive justice.
ER  -