Abstract One advantage of in-kind transfers is that they can focus assistance on low-income(eligible) beneficiaries by appearing relatively unattractive to high-income (ineligi ble) individuals. This article attempts to identify the conditions under which an in-kind transfer performs...

Identification of the welfare costs associated with rent seeking depends sensitively on the conditions that pertain to each case being considered It is dangerous to suppose that a particular rule will apply across the board. This argument is illustrated with respect to two examples. In the first...

The Leviathan literature has, as one of its themes, the manipulation of tax structures to minimize voter perceptions of their tax shares and hence predicts excessive public budgets. Existing confirmatory tests of this proposition, including those published in this journal, have been indirect and...

When governments intervene in response to the presence of irrationality, merit wants are provided by reference to experts. Neoclassical microeconomic theory says little about why, when, or how such intervention is required. However, literature in experimental economics identifies anomalous...

Allingham and Sandmo demonstrated that under decreasing absolute risk aversion, when the penalty for tax evasion fell on evaded income, an increase in the tax rate might increase, decrease, or leave unaltered the level of evaded income. Yitzhaki resolved the ambiguity by considering the impact...