Does housing capital contribute to inequality? A comment on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century

In his book, Capital in the 21st Century,Thomas Piketty highlights the risk of an explosion of wealth inequality because capital is accumulating faster than income in several countries including the US and European countries such as France. Our work challenges the conclusions of the author in three steps. First, the author’s result is based on the rise of only one of the components of capital, namely housing capital,and due to housing prices. In fact, housing prices have risen faster than rent and income in many countries.It is worth noting that “productive” capital, excluding housing, has only risen weakly relative to income over the last few decades. Over the longer run, the “productive” capital/income ratio has not increased at all. Second, rent, not housing prices, should matter for the dynamics of wealth inequality, because rent represents both the actual income of housing capital for landlords and the dwelling costs saved by “owner-occupiers” (people living in their own houses). Logically, to properly measure capital, the value of housing capital must be corrected by measuring it on actual rental price, and not housing prices. Third, when we apply this change, we find that the capital/income ratio is actually stable or only mildly higher in the countries analyzed (France, the US, the UK, and Canada) except for Germany where it rose. These conclusions are exactly opposite to those found by Thomas Piketty. However, this does not mean that housing prices do not contribute to other forms of inequality. When housing prices rise, owners of the housing capital hold a higher value that can be transformed into consumption. It is also more difficult for young adults to become homeowners. Housing incomes of owners however do not necessarily increase which casts serious doubt on Piketty’s conclusion of a potential explosive dynamics of inequality based on these trends

Secular Trends in Wealth and Heterogeneous Capital: Land is Back... and Should Be Taxed

The increase in wealth-to-income ratios in the second half of XXth century has recently received much attention. We decompose the trend in physical capital and housing, further decomposed into structures and land. In four out of five major countries analyzed, the positive trend in capital-income ratio arises from housing and specifically from its land component. We therefore revisit the question of wealth inequality and taxation in adopting a Georgist perspective (from Henry George, 1879) subsequently endorsed by prominent economists. We introduce land and housing structures in Judd’s optimal taxation framework. We show that an optimal taxation implies a property tax on land and no tax on capital. When the range of property taxes is politically constrained, taxing the product of housing rents is not optimal, even with additional taxes on "imputed rents". Rent taxes are however less distortive than a capital tax. The distortion depends on the share of housing structures and how they react to the tax on rents. However, a tax on rents complemented by a subsidy on structures investments in rental housing units does almost as well as a land tax. As a side result, we find that Judd’s result of no second best capital taxation extends to a larger range of parameters at the steady-state

Secular trends in Wealth and Heterogeneous Capital: Land is back...and should be taxed

The increase in wealth-to-income ratios in the second half of XXth century has recently received much attention. We decompose the trend in physical capital and housing, further decomposed into structures and land. In four out of five major countries analyzed, the positive trend in capital-income ratio arises from housing and specifically from its land component. We therefore revisit the question of wealth inequality and taxation in adopting a Georgist perspective (from Henry George, 1879) subsequently endorsed by prominent economists. We introduce land and housing structures in Judd’s optimal taxation framework. We show that an optimal taxation implies a property tax on land and no tax on capital. When the range of property taxes is politically constrained, taxing the product of housing rents is not optimal, even with additional taxes on "imputed rents". Rent taxes are however less distortive than a capital tax. The distortion depends on the share of housing structures and how they react to the tax on rents. However, a tax on rents complemented by a subsidy on structures investments in rental housing units does almost as well as a land tax. As a side result, we find that Judd’s result of no second best capital taxation extends to a larger range of parameters at the steady-state

Des choix résidentiels individuels et des prix immobiliers agrégés : les modèles de choix discrets revisités sous l’angle des modèles d’appariements

Le premier chapitre, écrit conjointement avec Alfred Galichon, Keith O'Hara et Matthew Shum, montre l'équivalence entre les modèles de choix discrets et les modèles d'appariements. Cette équivalence permet l'estimation efficace, par des algorithmes d'appariement, de modèles qui étaient jusqu'à présent réputés comme difficile à estimer dans la littérature. Le deuxième chapitre, écrit conjointement avec Mathilde Poulhès, s'appuie sur les résultats du premier pour estimer le consentement marginal à payer des agents pour différentes caractéristiques du logement et du quartier à Paris. Il introduit une nouvelle procédure d'estimation basée sur le modèle de pures caractéristiques. Grâce à un riche jeu de données sur les achats de logements à Paris, nous montrons que le revenu moyen du voisinage et le niveau de criminalité sont de puissants déterminants du choix du quartier pour tous les types d'acheteurs, que l'accessibilité à l'emploi est également un facteur déterminant pour les ménages comptant plus d'une personne, et que la qualité de l'école du secteur joue un rôle primordial pour les ménages avec enfants. Le troisième chapitre, écrit conjointement avec Guillaume Chapelle, Alain Trannoy et Etienne Wasmer, montre que la croissance récente du ratio patrimoine sur revenu est due uniquement à l'augmentation du prix des logements, et plus précisément à l'augmentation du prix d'un facteur fixe de production: la terre. Nous montrons ensuite qu'un système de taxation du patrimoine doit taxer le facteur fixe qu'est la terre à des fins de redistribution et non le capital productif pour ne pas décourager l'investissement.The first two of the three chapters of this thesis examine the identification and the estimation of discrete choice models. The first chapter proves the equivalence between matching models and discrete choice models, and draws the consequences in terms of identification and estimation. The second chapter builds on the results of the first, and uses matching algorithms to estimate the marginal willingness to pay of households for various housing and neighborhood characteristics in Paris (such as school performance, crime level, distance to employment areas). The third chapter deals with another topic: it first shows that the recent rise in the capital-income ratio highlighted by Thomas Piketty in his book is due to the rise in housing prices, and it then explores the consequences in terms of wealth distribution

Is Carbon Tax Truly More Salient? Evidence from Fuel Tourism at the France-Germany Border

This paper exploits the introduction of the German carbon tax in 2021 as well as excise tax rebates on fuel in both France and Germany, consecutive to the 2022 oil crisis, to infer how fuel tourism responds to changes in relative prices. Based on French high-frequency transaction-level data issued from individual banking accounts, we find substantial displacement between foreign and domestic consumption. When relative prices increase by 1%, the relative cross-border demand decreases by 7.7%. In border areas, the elasticity of tax revenue with respect to foreign prices is as high as 0.5. Moreover, there is no substantial difference in demand response to either carbon or excise tax. Such empirical evidence illustrates the importance of coordinating tax policy within EU

Land is back, it should be taxed, it can be taxed

International audienceLand is back. The increase in wealth in the second half of 20th century arose from housing and land. It should be taxed. We introduce land and housing structures in Judd’s standard setup: first best optimal taxation is achieved with a property tax on land and requires no tax on capital. With positive taxes on housing rents, a first best is still possible but with subsidies to rental housing investments, and either with differential land tax rates or with a tax on imputed rents. It can be taxed. Even absent land taxes, one can tax it indirectly and reach a Ramsey-second best still with no tax on capital and positive housing rent taxes in the steady-state. This result extends to the dynamics under restrictions on parameters

Crise sanitaire et situation financière des ménages en France – Une étude sur données bancaires mensuelles / The Health Crisis and the Financial Situation of Households in France – A Study on Monthly Bank Data

In view of the magnitude and the sudden nature of the health crisis in 2020, economists and statisticians have explored new sources of data to describe the development of the financial situation of households. The bank data used in this study, an anonymised panel of La Banque Postale customers, offer the twofold advantage of being able to be used virtually in real time and of recording monthly (or even daily) changes in income, spending and wealth. First, we show that while the crisis affected incomes in a limited and temporary way in 2020 for most households (regardless of income level), populations on the margins of the labour market suffered more. We then specifically study the situation of recipients of the revenu de solidarité active (RSA), a French in-work benefit. Although their social security benefits did not decrease in 2020, their incomes increased less than in a normal year because they did not return to employment. The exceptional government support paid out in May and November 2020 only partially counterbalanced these lower employment opportunities.Devant l’ampleur et la soudaineté de la crise sanitaire en 2020, économistes et statisticiens ont prospecté de nouvelles sources de données afin de décrire l’évolution de la situation financière des ménages. Les données bancaires mobilisées dans cette étude, un panel anonymisé de clients de La Banque Postale, offrent le double avantage de pouvoir être exploitées quasiment en temps réel et de retranscrire des évolutions mensuelles (voire quotidiennes) de revenus, de dépenses et de patrimoine. Nous montrons d’abord que si la crise a affecté les revenus de manière limitée et temporaire en 2020 pour la plupart des ménages (quel que soit le niveau de revenu), les populations en marge du marché de l’emploi ont été davantage pénalisées. Nous étudions ensuite spécifiquement la situation des allocataires du RSA. Si leurs prestations sociales n’ont pas diminué sur l’année 2020, leurs revenus ont moins augmenté qu’une année normale faute de retour à l’emploi. Les aides gouvernementales exceptionnelles versées en mai et en novembre 2020 n’ont que partiellement compensé ces moindres opportunités de travail.Bonnet Odran, Boutin Simon, Loisel Tristan, Olivia Tom. Crise sanitaire et situation financière des ménages en France – Une étude sur données bancaires mensuelles / The Health Crisis and the Financial Situation of Households in France – A Study on Monthly Bank Data. In: Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, n°534-35, 2022. pp. 21-42

Compensation against Fuel Inflation: Temporary Tax Rebates or Transfers?

This article exploits both the crude oil price surge consecutive to the invasion of Ukraine and 2022 fuel excise tax rebates in France as quasi-natural experiments to infer the price sensitivity of fuel demand. Based on granular individual bank account data at the transaction level, we properly disentangle anticipation effects from price effects, and estimate an average price elasticity of -0.31. It varies little with respect to income and location but substantially decreases, in absolute, with respect to fuel spending and is higher for retirees. We evaluate financial and distributional effects of the actual tax policy as well as its impact on CO2 emissions based on counterfactual simulations. We empirically demonstrate that resorting to transfers, be they targeted or not, achieves only imperfect compensation against fuel inflation. However, we show that a policy maker subject to a tight budget constraint and seeking to alleviate excessive losses, relative to income, prefers means-tested transfers to rebates

Le capital logement contribue-t-il aux inégalités ? : Retour sur Le capital au XXIe siècle de Thomas Piketty

Nº25International audienceDans son ouvrage, Le capital au XXIe siècle, Thomas Piketty souligne les risques d’une explosion des inégalités de patrimoine, car le capital augmenterait plus vite que le revenu dans plusieurs pays, dont la France. Nous reviendrions ainsi au niveau des inégalités du début du XXe siècle. Dans cette note, nous montrons que cette conclusion n’est pas plausible. D’abord, elle repose sur la hausse d’une seule des composantes du capital : le capital logement. Le capital dit "productif", hors immobilier, n’a que légèrement augmenté dans les dernières décennies, et sur le long terme, n’est pas en hausse tendancielle. Ensuite, sila valeur du capital immobilier mesurée dans les comptabilités nationales a augmenté sur cette période, c’est en raison de la hausse des prix de l’immobilier, qui ont crû beaucoup plus vite que les loyers et que les revenus depuis 2000. Or, les prix de l’immobilier ne sont pas corrélés aux revenus du capital logement.Au contraire, ce sont les loyers qui importent pour la dynamique des inégalités puisqu’ils représentent à la fois les revenus du capital des propriétaires-bailleurs et les dépenses économisées des propriétaires-occupants. Pour qualifier la hausse des inégalités de patrimoine, il faut donc mesurer le capital immobilier à partir des loyers - la valeur d’un logement est une somme de ses loyers actualisés - et non à partir des prix d’acquisition et de cession des biens immobiliers. Notre conclusion est alors que sur les dernières décennies, le ratio capital sur revenu, correctement évalué, est resté stable en France, en Grande-Bretagne, aux Etats-Unis et au Canada, ce qui contredit donc assez nettement la thèse de l’auteur. Cela ne signifie pas que les prix de l’immobilier n’ont aucun impact sur les inégalités : la valeur des logements ayant augmenté, les propriétaires détiennent une réserve de valeur plus importante, mobilisable en cas de perte majeure de revenus ; il est par ailleurs devenu plus difficile pour une personne sans capital de départ d’accéder à la propriété. Cependant, les revenus immobiliers des propriétaires ne se sont pas accrus pour autant,et il est donc difficile de maintenir la thèse d’une dynamique divergente d’accumulation du capital à partir de ces tendances

Secular Trends in Wealth and Heterogeneous Capital: Land is Back... and Should Be Taxed

The increase in wealth-to-income ratios in the second half of XXth century has recently received much attention. We decompose the trend in physical capital and housing, further decomposed into structures and land. In four out of five major countries analyzed, the positive trend in capital-income ratio arises from housing and specifically from its land component. We therefore revisit the question of wealth inequality and taxation in adopting a Georgist perspective (from Henry George, 1879) subsequently endorsed by prominent economists. We introduce land and housing structures in Judd’s optimal taxation framework. We show that an optimal taxation implies a property tax on land and no tax on capital. When the range of property taxes is politically constrained, taxing the product of housing rents is not optimal, even with additional taxes on "imputed rents". Rent taxes are however less distortive than a capital tax. The distortion depends on the share of housing structures and how they react to the tax on rents. However, a tax on rents complemented by a subsidy on structures investments in rental housing units does almost as well as a land tax. As a side result, we find that Judd’s result of no second best capital taxation extends to a larger range of parameters at the steady-state