Abstract This paper extends the calibrations of Piketty and Saez (2013. “A Theory of Optimal Inheritance Taxation.” Econometrica 81 (5): 1851–86) to unveil the importance of the assumed social welfare criteria and its interplay with individual heterogeneity on optimal inheritance taxation. I calibrate the full social optimal tax rate and find that it is highly sensitive to the assumed social welfare criteria. The optimal tax rate ranges from negative (under a utilitarian criterion) to positive and large (even assuming joy of giving motives). A decreasing marginal utility of consumption does not affect the results qualitatively, given the underlying distribution of wealth and income. I also calibrate the optimal tax rate by percentile of the distribution of bequest received, as in Piketty and Saez, but accounting for heterogeneity in wealth and labor income. This leads to significant variation in the optimal tax rate among zero-bequest receivers, contrary to their finding of a constant tax rate.

中文翻译：

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社会福利标准和个体异质性对优化遗产税的关键作用

摘要 本文扩展了 Piketty 和 Saez (2013. “A Theory of Optimal Inheritance Taxation.” Econometrica 81 (5): 1851–86) 的校准，以揭示假定社会福利标准的重要性及其与个体异质性在最优遗产税。我校准了完整的社会最优税率，发现它对假定的社会福利标准高度敏感。最佳税率范围从负（在功利主义标准下）到正和大（甚至假设给予动机的乐趣）。考虑到财富和收入的潜在分配，消费的边际效用下降不会对结果产生定性影响。我还根据收到的遗产分配的百分位数校准了最佳税率，如 Piketty 和 Saez，但要考虑到财富和劳动收入的异质性。这导致零遗产接收者的最佳税率发生显着变化，这与他们发现的恒定税率相反。