In general, I would agree with Ed, but I think that a blade weighted towards slicing in it's design, like a dedicated skinner, chef's/carving/bread knife, or a filleting/boning knife would be better without much, if any distal taper. I would also be starting out with a thin blade. This is one area where one is likely to run into differences of opinion more than right and wrong ideas. Many, if not most, things in knife making involves compromise between elements and each maker has to decide on how they want to make that compromise. I've also seen dedicated choppers that combine both a distal and proximal tapers; the blade was thickest at the "sweet spot" and tapered from there to both the tip and the tang. As an aside, you will also sometimes see this in broken back seax designs, both historical and reproduction, just simply because that is the way they tend to forge out. The metal is upset in the forward area of the blade when the downward bevel is forged into the profile and never got drawn out except toward the tip.
Doug