We study the impact of the different tax treatment of capital gains and losses on the optimal location of assets in taxable and tax-deferred accounts. The classical result of Black (1980) and Tepper (1981) suggests that investors should follow a strict pecking order asset location rule and hold those assets that are subject to the highest tax rate preferentially in tax-deferred accounts. We show that with the different tax treatment of realized gains and losses, only tax-efficient equity mutual funds are optimally held in taxable accounts, whereas mutual funds with average tax-(in)efficiency are preferentially held in tax-deferred accounts.

This article studies the impact of a redistributive tax system on consumption, portfolio decisions, and asset prices in a dynamic general equilibrium model. Poorer agents, which receive more in transfers than they pay in taxes, optimally reduce their exposure to equity, because the transfer income they receive is subject to stock market risk. This article thus provides a novel explanation for the low stock market participation rates of poorer investors.