We consider an economy with two groups of individuals, rich and poor. A central authority can either directly redistribute income to the poor, or allow for some degree of informality in economic activities by not enforcing property rights. The optimal degree of informality depends upon the...

Lucas (1976) argued that interventionist policies in macroeconomics may fail because the policies themselves affect the optimal behavior of private agents and hence the associated response parameters. We extend Lucas's argument and propose that a highly controlled and regulated environment leads...