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@Joe_Parisi @ezraklein The point of the piece is to explain how recent economic research built a case that higher taxes on the rich could be optimal. Every discussion of optimal tax (/optimal anything), from every economist, includes value judgments, because you have to decide what you mean by optimal.
@Joe_Parisi @ezraklein The economic research on optimal tax cited in the piece, by Piketty, Saez, Diamond, Stantcheva, Zucman and others, explicitly lay out the cases in which high top tax rates can be optimal. A big part of this research is demonstrating under what assumptions the efficiency costs..
@Joe_Parisi @ezraklein ..of top tax rates can be small. The choice of a tax rate must balance a variety of concerns - efficiency, equity, revenue raising. This research made a theoretical and empirical case that the efficiency costs were likely substantially lower than previous research had concluded
@Joe_Parisi @ezraklein Also, Piketty's work as a body has not largely been discredited. His work on measurement of inequality is I think widely accepted. The optimal tax work cited here is certainly contested by many economists but agreed with by many others.
@Joe_Parisi @ezraklein His r>g theory of capitalism accumulation is much more controversial, but not central to this piece.
