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In the last 20-plus years, overall economic growth in the United States has come at a cost: rising income inequality, which in the past few years has hit levels not seen since the late 1920s. A more progressive income tax, introduced during the New Deal, helped mitigate the problem, and it remains a likely prescription today. Yet a team of economists that includes Robert Shiller of Yale University and Leonard Burman of the Tax Policy Center recently released a paper in which they propose another way of ''spreading the wealth'' -- one that, while less controversial in political terms, would still prevent income inequality from worsening in the coming years. Under the proposal, the tax code would automatically be rewritten at the end of each year to reflect any changes in the relative share of national income earned by each income bracket. For example, if one year the nation's top earners saw their share of national income rise while people at the bottom saw their share grow at a slower rate (or decline), the following year's tax rates would be automatically rewritten to compensate for the new inequality. This would keep everyone's share of after-tax income at the earlier level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on William Vickrey a professor of economics at Columbia University for 50 years. Reputation for devising complex theories to solve everyday problems; Excerpt from letter which he sent to the editors of `The New York Times Magazine,' part of a lengthy paper debunking widely held demand-side beliefs.