In this IPR Public Lecture Professor David Stasavage - Julius Silver Professor and Chair in the Wilf Family Department of Politics at New York University - discusses his latest book: Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe. The book, and the lecture, draw on unparalleled evidence from 20 countries over the last two centuries to provide the broadest and most in-depth history of progressive taxation available.

Stasavage explores the intellectual and political debates surrounding the taxation of the wealthy while also providing a detailed examination of when taxes have been levied against the rich and when they haven't. Fairness in debates about taxing the rich has depended on different views of what it means to treat people as equals and whether taxing the rich advances or undermines this norm. He argues that governments don't tax the rich just because inequality is high or rising—they do it when people believe that such taxes compensate for the state unfairly privileging the wealthy.

This IPR Public Lecture took place on 14 April 2016