Disposable income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient and using Family Budget Survey data, increased very little, and by a similar amount, from 1989–93 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This surprising result is examined with an analysis of changes in the channels of...

We study the determinants of comparative advantage in polluting industries. We combine data on environmental policy at the country level with data on pollution intensity at the industry level to show that countries with laxer environmental regulation have a comparative advantage in polluting...

This paper studies fiscal federalism when regions differ in voters’ ability to monitor public officials. We develop a model of political agency in which rent-seeking politicians provide public goods to win support from heterogeneously informed voters. In equilibrium, voter information...

We present a framework for studying the relation between the distribution of income and the distribution of housing prices that is based on an assignment model of households with heterogeneous incomes and houses of heterogeneous quality. The equilibrium distribution of prices depends on both...

In this article we quantify the aggregate, distributional and welfare consequences of two revenue neutral flat-tax reforms using a model economy that replicates the U.S. distributions of earnings, income and wealth in very much detail. We find that the less progressive reform brings about a 2.4%...

Even relatively poor people oppose high rates of redistribution because of the anticipation that they, or their children, may move up the income ladder. This ‘Prospect of Upward Mobility’ (POUM) hypothesis is commonly advanced to explain why democracies do not engage in large-scale...

This Paper analyses the economic issues associated with human cloning and new reproductive technologies. We analyse the incentives for human cloning and its implications for the long run distribution of skills and income. We analyse models of human cloning for different motives, focusing on...

Starting from a simple, descriptive model of individual income, an explicit link between the age composition of a population and the personal distribution of incomes is established. Demographic effects on income inequality are derived. Next, a pay-as-you-go financed state pension system is...

This paper analyses the interaction between the distribution of human capital, technological progress, and economic growth. It demonstrates the significant role of the distribution of human capital in the process of economic development. The evolutionary pattern of the human capital...

This Paper studies a model where Information Technology, while typically increasing overall inequality, is likely to harm some people at intermediate and high levels of the distribution of income but to benefit people at the bottom; where within a given occupation it may harm some workers while...