Economic and political decisions usually involve a trade-off between efficiency and equality considerations. While some inequality is expected to prevail in our societies, high levels of it are objectionable on various grounds. One of the fundamental roles of government is to collect and...

While decreasing inequality is generally considered desirable, and there is a growing understanding of which policies do and do not promote equality, much less is known regarding why these policies are adopted to varying degrees of intensity in different times and places. To explain this...