Economist Podcasts The Robin Hood state: taxes are getting more progressive
51 snips
Feb 18, 2026 
Callum Williams, senior economics writer explaining rising post-tax redistribution and policy trade-offs. Carla Subirana, news reporter on security, exploring why many Colombians work as mercenaries abroad and the pressures driving them. Lane Greene, language specialist, arguing Spanish in the US may be peaking amid generational shifts. Short, punchy conversations on taxes, mercenarism and language change.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Welfare States Grew More Progressive
- Global welfare states have become more progressive since 1990, increasing redistribution from rich to poor in most countries.
- In many places post-tax inequality is no higher than in the 1990s because of stronger redistribution.
Loopholes, Not Just Rates, Mattered
- Tightening loopholes has made it harder for the rich to avoid taxes compared with mid-20th-century practices.
- As a result, the rich today often pay more effective tax than they did despite lower headline rates then.
Why Progressivity Increased
- Both closing avoidance and raising headline rates explain greater progressivity, with clamping down on avoidance the larger factor.
- Policymakers now feel able to push higher taxes on the rich further than previously thought.