Authors

Alan D. Viard

Resident Scholar

American Enterprise Institute

ALAN D. VIARD is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies federal tax and budget policy. Prior to joining AEI, Viard was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and an assistant professor of economics at Ohio State University. He has also been a visiting scholar at the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis, a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a staff economist at the Joint Committee on Taxation of the US Congress. Viard has taught public finance at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and he co-hosted the New York University Law School tax policy colloquium in the spring 2015 semester. Earlier in his career, Viard spent time in Japan as a visiting scholar at Osaka University’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Viard received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and a B.A. in economics from Yale University.

Publications

Wealth Taxation: An Overview of the Issues

Viard argues that a wealth tax in the U.S. would pose administrative and constitutional challenges. As an economic matter, such a tax would decrease savings and investment, thereby lowering the capital stock, making workers less productive, and slowing wage growth. The potential revenue that would be gained is unclear.