Decentralisation is invariably among the recommendations that international organisations such as the World Bank make for an enhancement of social provisions, and particularly a better targeting of social assistance regimes, in Eastern and Central Europe. However, theoretical literature as wel...

We investigate how income inequality affects social welfare in a model of voluntary contributions to multiple pure public goods. Itaya, de Meza, and Myles (1997) show that the maximization of social welfare precludes income equality in a single pure public good model. In contrast, we show that...