Officials in Stockholm today announced that this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be shared by Professor Robert Hall and Professor Michael Woodford for their work on microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilization.
Congratulations to Robert Hall! In addition to brilliant study of booms-and-busts, he is also the author (with Alvin Rabushka) of the Hall-Rabushka Flat Tax, still the most detailed and thoughtful idea for a one-rate income tax with no carveouts and postcard-easy compliance.
The Hall-Rabushka idea has spread at the state level where nearly half the states have either a flat income tax or no income tax at all. Many of these follow Hall-Rabushka design: one rate, generous standard deduction, and easy compliance.