Abstract: How should governments calibrate the desire for redistribution via progressive taxation against the need to incentivise the accumulation of human capital? I explore this question in a heterogeneous agent model featuring stochastic human capital accumulation where agents choose an optimal number of years to study before starting work. The social welfare-maximising policy features generous subsidies for education and highly progressive labour taxes.

Abstract:  I show that a standard incomplete markets model with labour income risk alone, when modelled accurately using a new method, can broadly match the distribution of wealth observed in the US and UK. Moreover, I show that increased labour income inequality and risk can account for around a third of the rise in the concentration of wealth among the top 1% in the US since the 1970s.