I think that by now, everyone has heard of the pretty amazing findings of Raj Chetty and his coauthors regarding social mobility in the U.S. and how this depends on where people live. How were they able to learn so much about the world? Administrative data from the IRS. I have on more than on one occasion sat dumb-founded wile looking at the graphs and figures that have come out of the Opportunity Insights project.
But how did a pair of academics get access to these data? This article tells the story.
You may be more interested in how you can get access to tax data. The bad news is that it is still quite tricky to get IRS data. The good news is that tax data from other countries seems quite "get-able". See this blog post explaining the different types of tax data, where to access the data, and a bit on the practical steps towards acquiring access.
My guess is that different countries collect different types of information on their tax forms. You may be able to answer some very important questions by looking into what is available in different countries.
And if your dead set on studying the U.S., the Opportunity Insights project provides quite a bit of aggregate data for anyone to download and use.
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