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The Liberal website does have some beautifully styled bullet points and trendy cartoon graphics showing how much the proposals put in the loot bags of different demographic groups. It’s always fun to check the names the spin-doctors choose for their hypothetical families, in this case: single-mom Anna, and couples with kids Preeti and Jessie, Michelle and Jean, Julie and Andrew, and Darrell and Robert. Vote Liberal and get $1,500 a month! It’s a little obvious and not very catchy but who’ll argue with $1,500? (That’s what Julie and Andrew, who have four kids and family income of $65,000/yr would get.)

But, given the Liberals’ fetish for evidence, it would be nicer to have something a little firmer in the way of an evidentiary base for the proposals, especially the increase in the top marginal rate from 29 to 33 per cent. It’s not that there’s any shortage of good evidence about the effects of taxation on both government revenues and personal incomes. Canadian economists have been working hard on this issue for a long time and if anything at a heightened pace since inequality started to be such a concern — at least among elites.

For instance, last year’s C. D. Howe Institute Benefactors Lecture by University of British Columbia economist Kevin Milligan was in large part about the incentive effects of taxation. It’s of note not just for its quality, which is not surprising since Milligan is one of Canada’s leading research economists, but also because he is often mentioned as one of the economists advising Justin Trudeau. What is surprising, in view of the Liberals’ proposed tax hike, is that the lecture argues that raising taxes on high incomes is far from certain to increase revenues.