We investigate the impact of analytical choices on country comparisons in intergenerational educational mobility using a multiverse approach. A literature survey gives rise to 2,880 plausible ways of measuring educational mobility, which we apply to European Social Survey data from 16 countries. Although some countries consistently appear at the top or bottom of the mobility rankings, most show substantial variation. Beyond our methodological contribution, we report two substantive findings. First, some countries often characterized as low-mobility emerge as matching or surpassing the egalitarian Nordic countries, reinforcing the view that wider mobility differences cannot be attributed solely to the education system but must be sought elsewhere, such as the labor market. Second, the choice of parameter—such as regression coefficients, correlations, or categorical measures—is the single most influential factor that shifts country rankings. As different parameters carry distinct theoretical meanings, researchers should treat parameter choice not merely as a robustness check but as an opportunity to test and refine competing theories.
{"title":"How Robust Are Country Rankings in Educational Mobility?","authors":"Ely Strömberg, Per Engzell","doi":"10.15195/v12.a36","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a36","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate the impact of analytical choices on country comparisons in intergenerational educational mobility using a multiverse approach. A literature survey gives rise to 2,880 plausible ways of measuring educational mobility, which we apply to European Social Survey data from 16 countries. Although some countries consistently appear at the top or bottom of the mobility rankings, most show substantial variation. Beyond our methodological contribution, we report two substantive findings. First, some countries often characterized as low-mobility emerge as matching or surpassing the egalitarian Nordic countries, reinforcing the view that wider mobility differences cannot be attributed solely to the education system but must be sought elsewhere, such as the labor market. Second, the choice of parameter—such as regression coefficients, correlations, or categorical measures—is the single most influential factor that shifts country rankings. As different parameters carry distinct theoretical meanings, researchers should treat parameter choice not merely as a robustness check but as an opportunity to test and refine competing theories.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145728860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Segregation—whether across schools, neighborhoods, or occupations—is regularly invoked as a cause of social and economic disparities. However, segregation is a complicated causal treatment: what do we mean when we appeal to a world in which segregation does not exist? One could take societal contexts as the unit of analysis and compare across societies with differing levels of segregation. In practice, it is more common for studies of segregation to take persons or households as the unit of analysis within a single societal context, focusing on what would happen if particular individuals were counterfactually assigned to social positions in a more equitable way. Taking this latter framework, this article shows how to study segregation as a cause. The first step is to theorize a counterfactual assignment rule: what would it mean to assign people to social positions equitably? The second step is to identify the causal effect of those social positions and simulate counterfactual outcomes. The third step is to interpret results as the impact of a unit-level (rather than society-level) intervention. A running example and empirical analysis illustrates the approach by studying the causal effect of occupational segregation on a racial health gap.
{"title":"The Causal Impact of Segregation on a Disparity: A Gap-Closing Approach","authors":"Ian Lundberg","doi":"10.15195/v12.a35","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a35","url":null,"abstract":"Segregation—whether across schools, neighborhoods, or occupations—is regularly invoked as a cause of social and economic disparities. However, segregation is a complicated causal treatment: what do we mean when we appeal to a world in which segregation does not exist? One could take societal contexts as the unit of analysis and compare across societies with differing levels of segregation. In practice, it is more common for studies of segregation to take persons or households as the unit of analysis within a single societal context, focusing on what would happen if particular individuals were counterfactually assigned to social positions in a more equitable way. Taking this latter framework, this article shows how to study segregation as a cause. The first step is to theorize a counterfactual assignment rule: what would it mean to assign people to social positions equitably? The second step is to identify the causal effect of those social positions and simulate counterfactual outcomes. The third step is to interpret results as the impact of a unit-level (rather than society-level) intervention. A running example and empirical analysis illustrates the approach by studying the causal effect of occupational segregation on a racial health gap.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145689433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In life course research, it is common practice to analyze the effects of life events on outcomes. This is usually done by estimating “impact functions.” To date, most studies have estimated yearly impact functions. However, Hudde and Jacob (2023) (hereafter H&J) pointed out that most panel data sets include information on the month of events. Consequently, they proposed exploiting this information by estimating monthly impact functions. In this adversarial collaboration, we address two issues regarding H&J’s work. First, H&J did not provide sufficient guidance on how to estimate monthly impact functions. We will provide a step-by-step description of how to do so. Second, the procedure H&J proposed for smoothing monthly estimates produces confidence intervals (CIs) that are likely too narrow. This can lead to misleading conclusions. Therefore, we suggest using more appropriate bootstrapped CIs.
{"title":"What You Need to Know When Estimating Monthly Impact Functions: Comment on Hudde and Jacob, “There’s More in the Data!”","authors":"Josef Brüderl, Ansgar Hudde, Marita Jacob","doi":"10.15195/v12.a34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a34","url":null,"abstract":"In life course research, it is common practice to analyze the effects of life events on outcomes. This is usually done by estimating “impact functions.” To date, most studies have estimated yearly impact functions. However, Hudde and Jacob (2023) (hereafter H&J) pointed out that most panel data sets include information on the month of events. Consequently, they proposed exploiting this information by estimating monthly impact functions. In this adversarial collaboration, we address two issues regarding H&J’s work. First, H&J did not provide sufficient guidance on how to estimate monthly impact functions. We will provide a step-by-step description of how to do so. Second, the procedure H&J proposed for smoothing monthly estimates produces confidence intervals (CIs) that are likely too narrow. This can lead to misleading conclusions. Therefore, we suggest using more appropriate bootstrapped CIs.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145674531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the United States, the financial and co-residential dependence of young adults on parents has increased for decades. This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of economic support trajectories, their contextual, family, and individual determinants, and temporal relation to other transition to adulthood milestones. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Transition to Adulthood Study (2005–2021), we identify trajectories of financial and co-residential support between ages 18 and 28 and relate them to economic and partnership trajectories and events. We study how macro-economic crises (the Great Recession and COVID-19), family characteristics, and individual traits within sibships predict trajectory membership. We find three distinct pathways: first, prolonged education and financial support are more common among advantaged families and, within siblings, among those exposed to the Great Recession. Second, early employment and prolonged co-residence are the most prevalent among disadvantaged families and children. Third, economic independence through marriage is most common among white people living outside metropolitan areas.
{"title":"Pathways to Independence: The Dynamics of Parental Support in the Transition to Adulthood","authors":"Ramina Sotoudeh, Ginevra Floridi","doi":"10.15195/v12.a33","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a33","url":null,"abstract":"In the United States, the financial and co-residential dependence of young adults on parents has increased for decades. This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of economic support trajectories, their contextual, family, and individual determinants, and temporal relation to other transition to adulthood milestones. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Transition to Adulthood Study (2005–2021), we identify trajectories of financial and co-residential support between ages 18 and 28 and relate them to economic and partnership trajectories and events. We study how macro-economic crises (the Great Recession and COVID-19), family characteristics, and individual traits within sibships predict trajectory membership. We find three distinct pathways: first, prolonged education and financial support are more common among advantaged families and, within siblings, among those exposed to the Great Recession. Second, early employment and prolonged co-residence are the most prevalent among disadvantaged families and children. Third, economic independence through marriage is most common among white people living outside metropolitan areas.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145600080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I investigate whether the political ascent of Donald Trump, an adamant immigration restrictionist, during the 2016 presidential campaign was accompanied by decreasing support for the legalization of undocumented immigrants. Compiling survey data from 2012 to 2016, I show consistent support for legalization throughout the period. However, support was on the decline until Trump entered the presidential race in June 2015, rising thereafter. I use two Pew Research Center surveys, fielded in May 2015 and October 2016, to document that the increase in support for legalization was spearheaded by females, suburban residents, and self-identified Democrats. No demographic group, however defined, recorded a significant decline in their support for legalization. The political ascent of Donald Trump between mid-2015 and the presidential election of November 2016 was not associated with a decline in support for the legalization of undocumented immigrants but the opposite, consistent with similar trends recorded in Europe following the rise of right-wing parties. I discuss the implications of these findings for research on immigration attitudes.
我调查了坚定的移民限制主义者唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）在2016年总统竞选期间的政治崛起，是否伴随着对无证移民合法化支持的减少。我整理了2012年至2016年的调查数据，在这段时间里，我始终支持大麻合法化。然而，在特朗普于2015年6月参加总统竞选之前，支持率一直在下降，此后又有所上升。皮尤研究中心（Pew Research Center）在2015年5月和2016年10月进行的两项调查显示，女性、郊区居民和自认为是民主党人的人率先支持大麻合法化。无论如何定义，没有一个人口群体对大麻合法化的支持显著下降。从2015年中期到2016年11月总统大选期间，唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）的政治崛起与对无证移民合法化的支持率下降没有关系，相反，这与右翼政党崛起后欧洲出现的类似趋势一致。我将讨论这些发现对移民态度研究的影响。
{"title":"Public Support for the Legalization of Undocumented Immigrants during the 2016 Presidential Campaign","authors":"Mariano Sana","doi":"10.15195/v12.a32","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a32","url":null,"abstract":"I investigate whether the political ascent of Donald Trump, an adamant immigration restrictionist, during the 2016 presidential campaign was accompanied by decreasing support for the legalization of undocumented immigrants. Compiling survey data from 2012 to 2016, I show consistent support for legalization throughout the period. However, support was on the decline until Trump entered the presidential race in June 2015, rising thereafter. I use two Pew Research Center surveys, fielded in May 2015 and October 2016, to document that the increase in support for legalization was spearheaded by females, suburban residents, and self-identified Democrats. No demographic group, however defined, recorded a significant decline in their support for legalization. The political ascent of Donald Trump between mid-2015 and the presidential election of November 2016 was not associated with a decline in support for the legalization of undocumented immigrants but the opposite, consistent with similar trends recorded in Europe following the rise of right-wing parties. I discuss the implications of these findings for research on immigration attitudes.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"165 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145575558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lasse Folke Henriksen, Jacob Aagard Lunding, Christoph Houman Ellersgaard:, Anton Grau Larsen
Who represents the corporate elite in democratic governance? In his seminal work on the corporate “inner circle,” Useem (1986) studied three network-related mechanisms from corporate interlocks that together shaped the ideology and political organization of American and British corporate elites during the postwar era in crucial ways: corporate brokerage, elite social cohesion, and network centrality. Subsequent research has found similar dynamics at play across a variety of democratic capitalist societies. However, all existing studies on corporate elite representation in democratic governance rest on analyses of the top ranks at very large corporations. We cast a wider net. Analyzing new population data on all members of corporate boards in the Danish economy (∼200,000 directors in ∼120,000 boards), we locate ∼1,500 directors who operate as brokers between local corporate networks and measure their network coreness using k -core detection. We find a highly connected network core of ∼275 directors, half of whom are affiliated with smaller companies or subsidiaries and then document the power of director coreness in predicting government committee attendance, a key form of political representation in Denmark’s social-corporatist model of governance. We find a large political premium for directors in very large companies but show that within the network core the gap between directors of smaller and large companies is closed, suggesting that the network core levels the playing field in corporate access to the legislative process.
{"title":"The Hardcore Brokers: Core-Periphery Structure and Political Representation in Denmark’s Corporate Elite Network","authors":"Lasse Folke Henriksen, Jacob Aagard Lunding, Christoph Houman Ellersgaard:, Anton Grau Larsen","doi":"10.15195/v12.a31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a31","url":null,"abstract":"Who represents the corporate elite in democratic governance? In his seminal work on the corporate “inner circle,” Useem (1986) studied three network-related mechanisms from corporate interlocks that together shaped the ideology and political organization of American and British corporate elites during the postwar era in crucial ways: corporate brokerage, elite social cohesion, and network centrality. Subsequent research has found similar dynamics at play across a variety of democratic capitalist societies. However, all existing studies on corporate elite representation in democratic governance rest on analyses of the top ranks at very large corporations. We cast a wider net. Analyzing new population data on all members of corporate boards in the Danish economy (∼200,000 directors in ∼120,000 boards), we locate ∼1,500 directors who operate as brokers between local corporate networks and measure their network coreness using k -core detection. We find a highly connected network core of ∼275 directors, half of whom are affiliated with smaller companies or subsidiaries and then document the power of director coreness in predicting government committee attendance, a key form of political representation in Denmark’s social-corporatist model of governance. We find a large political premium for directors in very large companies but show that within the network core the gap between directors of smaller and large companies is closed, suggesting that the network core levels the playing field in corporate access to the legislative process.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"171 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145545413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—such as abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18—pose substantial risks to individual health and well-being throughout life, but relatively less research has examined how ACEs are associated with parenting behaviors or children’s home environments. We use linked mother–child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a U.S. longitudinal cohort study, to investigate how maternal ACEs are associated with the emotional support and cognitive stimulation of children. Regression results demonstrate an inverse relationship between maternal ACE exposure and the degree of emotional support and cognitive stimulation in children’s home environments. Children born to mothers with four or more ACEs had, on average, 4.9 percentile-unit lower emotional support scores and 5.6 percentile-unit lower cognitive stimulation scores relative to mothers with no ACE exposure, net of maternal and child sociodemographic characteristics. Further results document the importance of emotional neglect and physical abuse, both of which were independently and negatively related to the emotional support and cognitive stimulation of children. Our article builds on a growing body of literature by documenting links between maternal ACE exposure and children’s home environments and by illuminating the lengthy intergenerational reach of parental ACEs.
{"title":"The Intergenerational Reach of Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences: Associations with Children’s Emotional Support and Cognitive Stimulation","authors":"Lawrence Stacey, Kristi Williams","doi":"10.15195/v12.a30","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a30","url":null,"abstract":"Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—such as abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18—pose substantial risks to individual health and well-being throughout life, but relatively less research has examined how ACEs are associated with parenting behaviors or children’s home environments. We use linked mother–child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a U.S. longitudinal cohort study, to investigate how maternal ACEs are associated with the emotional support and cognitive stimulation of children. Regression results demonstrate an inverse relationship between maternal ACE exposure and the degree of emotional support and cognitive stimulation in children’s home environments. Children born to mothers with four or more ACEs had, on average, 4.9 percentile-unit lower emotional support scores and 5.6 percentile-unit lower cognitive stimulation scores relative to mothers with no ACE exposure, net of maternal and child sociodemographic characteristics. Further results document the importance of emotional neglect and physical abuse, both of which were independently and negatively related to the emotional support and cognitive stimulation of children. Our article builds on a growing body of literature by documenting links between maternal ACE exposure and children’s home environments and by illuminating the lengthy intergenerational reach of parental ACEs.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"169 1","pages":"743-768"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145473022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Complex contagion rests on the idea that individuals are more likely to adopt a behavior if they experience social reinforcement from multiple sources. We develop a test for complex contagion, conceptualized as social reinforcement, and then use it to examine whether empirical data from a country-scale randomized controlled viral marketing field experiment show evidence of complex contagion. The experiment uses a peer encouragement design in which individuals were randomly exposed to either one or two friends who were encouraged to share a coupon for a mobile data product. Using three different analytical methods to address the empirical challenges of causal identification, we provide strong support for complex contagion: the contagion process cannot be understood as independent cascades but rather as a process in which signals from multiple sources amplify each other through synergistic interdependence. We also find social network embeddedness is an important structural moderator that shapes the effectiveness of social reinforcement.
{"title":"Complex Contagion in Social Networks: Causal Evidence from a Country-Scale Field Experiment","authors":"Jaemin Lee, David Lazer, Christoph Riedl","doi":"10.15195/v12.a28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a28","url":null,"abstract":"Complex contagion rests on the idea that individuals are more likely to adopt a behavior if they experience social reinforcement from multiple sources. We develop a test for complex contagion, conceptualized as social reinforcement, and then use it to examine whether empirical data from a country-scale randomized controlled viral marketing field experiment show evidence of complex contagion. The experiment uses a peer encouragement design in which individuals were randomly exposed to either one or two friends who were encouraged to share a coupon for a mobile data product. Using three different analytical methods to address the empirical challenges of causal identification, we provide strong support for complex contagion: the contagion process cannot be understood as independent cascades but rather as a process in which signals from multiple sources amplify each other through synergistic interdependence. We also find social network embeddedness is an important structural moderator that shapes the effectiveness of social reinforcement.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"131 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145311071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article documents a surprising reversal in the long-standing gender gap in academic achievement: between 2021 and 2024, Swedish girls’ school grades declined sharply, whereas boys’ grades remained stable, narrowing the gender gap by over a third. Using full-population data on official school grades and national test scores, the analysis shows that the decline is broad based, affecting nearly all subjects and concentrated among previously high-performing girls. Changes in grading policy or long-term mental health trends are unlikely to account for the sudden downturn. Instead, the evidence points to behavioral changes in girls’ school engagement, possibly triggered by external shocks. Among the most plausible shocks are the rise of TikTok, which increased in popularity among girls just before the grade decline, and Covid-19 disruptions, which may have acted as a catalyst. Although the causes remain uncertain, the pattern signals a sociologically significant disruption, challenging assumptions of stable female academic advantage and inviting international replication.
{"title":"Equalization through Deterioration: The Shrinking Gender Gap in Swedish School Grades","authors":"Carina Mood","doi":"10.15195/v12.a27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a27","url":null,"abstract":"This article documents a surprising reversal in the long-standing gender gap in academic achievement: between 2021 and 2024, Swedish girls’ school grades declined sharply, whereas boys’ grades remained stable, narrowing the gender gap by over a third. Using full-population data on official school grades and national test scores, the analysis shows that the decline is broad based, affecting nearly all subjects and concentrated among previously high-performing girls. Changes in grading policy or long-term mental health trends are unlikely to account for the sudden downturn. Instead, the evidence points to behavioral changes in girls’ school engagement, possibly triggered by external shocks. Among the most plausible shocks are the rise of TikTok, which increased in popularity among girls just before the grade decline, and Covid-19 disruptions, which may have acted as a catalyst. Although the causes remain uncertain, the pattern signals a sociologically significant disruption, challenging assumptions of stable female academic advantage and inviting international replication.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The question of how to design socially optimal tax policies is located at the epicenter of today’s inequality debate. However, the field of optimal policy design is dominated by a distinctive brand of economic analysis which suffers from a blinkered theoretical lens and weak empirical foundations. This article offers an alternative framework for studying optimal policy design that replaces the dominant economic model’s emphasis on individual utility with a sociological emphasis on unequal life chances. Cross-national data are mobilized to study the architecture of contemporary tax systems across different institutional contexts. The dual taxation of labor and capital income coupled with the preferential treatment of socially concentrated wealth accumulation is shown to have generated sharp tax regressivity at the top of the resource distribution in all countries under consideration, from the (neo)liberal Anglosphere to social-democratic Scandinavia. Rationales for and possible designs of a progressive wealth tax, for which there is renewed international interest, are then explored in detail. A tractable formal model of optimal policy design is presented in which the net welfare effect of a tax policy reform emerges as a weighted sum of how the reform impacts aggregate life chances, inequality in life chances, and the ambient ecosphere. Under common normative and analytical assumptions, a socially optimal annual wealth tax levied on society’s most affluent——defined above a high exemption threshold——is shown to be positive and, in empirically realistic scenarios, lies upward of 10 percent. The corresponding top income tax rate exceeds 65 percent and can, on “limitarian” grounds, approach the confiscatory rate.
{"title":"The Political Economy of Optimal Taxation","authors":"Elias Nosrati","doi":"10.15195/v12.a26","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15195/v12.a26","url":null,"abstract":"The question of how to design socially optimal tax policies is located at the epicenter of today’s inequality debate. However, the field of optimal policy design is dominated by a distinctive brand of economic analysis which suffers from a blinkered theoretical lens and weak empirical foundations. This article offers an alternative framework for studying optimal policy design that replaces the dominant economic model’s emphasis on individual utility with a sociological emphasis on unequal life chances. Cross-national data are mobilized to study the architecture of contemporary tax systems across different institutional contexts. The dual taxation of labor and capital income coupled with the preferential treatment of socially concentrated wealth accumulation is shown to have generated sharp tax regressivity at the top of the resource distribution in all countries under consideration, from the (neo)liberal Anglosphere to social-democratic Scandinavia. Rationales for and possible designs of a progressive wealth tax, for which there is renewed international interest, are then explored in detail. A tractable formal model of optimal policy design is presented in which the net welfare effect of a tax policy reform emerges as a weighted sum of how the reform impacts aggregate life chances, inequality in life chances, and the ambient ecosphere. Under common normative and analytical assumptions, a socially optimal annual wealth tax levied on society’s most affluent——defined above a high exemption threshold——is shown to be positive and, in empirically realistic scenarios, lies upward of 10 percent. The corresponding top income tax rate exceeds 65 percent and can, on “limitarian” grounds, approach the confiscatory rate.","PeriodicalId":22029,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Science","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145083689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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