Divide and rule

Given the National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER) expertise in dating recessions, CII organized a special session when NBER President James Michael Poterba was in the capital last week. Poterba’s talk focussed on the US fiscal deficit and how it was projected to grow — in that context, he showed a chart which gave figures on how much of US tax collections were contributed by the top 1 per cent, the top 5 per cent and so on. The very first question, from Rajeev Karwal of Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, was whether there was similar data on tax contributions by ethnic backgrounds. Reservations policy for taxes, anyone?