This paper explores the question of structural transformation and income distribution through the eyes of the pioneer in such analysis, Simon Kuznets. It argues that his 1955 paper stands the test of time in providing insights which are relevant to understanding current phenomena like the...

Both raw intuition and past experience suggest that the success of an employment guarantee scheme (EGS) in safeguarding the welfare of the poor depends both on the wage it promises, and the ease with which any worker can gain access. An EGS is thus at once a wage guarantee and a rationing...

This paper considers a seeming disconnect between the consensus in policy circles that reducing gender inequalities is to be prioritized in strategies for reducing inequality and poverty, and a view in mainstream economics (and in some policy circles) that gender inequalities are overemphasized....

We develop an integrated, general equilibrium, model of how the presence of vertical ties of "community" between sections of workers and sections of capitalists can critically affect the distribution of income between capitalists as a class and workers as a class, as well as between workers...

We investigate how voluntary contributions to community-specific public goods affect (a) the relationship between inequality of incomes and inequality of welfare outcomes, and (b) individuals' material incentives fo r supporting income redistribution. We show that the nominal distribution of...

Wealthy individuals often voluntarily provide public goods that the poor also consume. Such philanthropy is perceived as legitimizing one's wealth. Governments routinely exempt the rich from taxation on grounds of their charitable expenditure. We examine the normative logic of this exemption. We...