The vast majority of studies of the U.S. estate and gift tax have focused either on its distributional effects or on its relations to specific aspects of economic behavior, such as saving or contributing to charity. In this seminar in AEI’s tax policy series, Professor Douglas Holtz-Eakin of Syracuse University will present a paper (coauthored with Professor Donald Marples) that analyzes the efficiency of the tax. Using data from the National Institute of Health’s Health and Retirement Survey, Professor Holtz-Eakin will characterize the estate tax in terms of the level and distribution of effective tax rates, the behavioral responses to the tax, and its corresponding efficiency losses.