This paper investigates the optimality of international income transfers in a two-country model in which each country engages in non-cooperative trade policy behaviour. It is shown that unconditional income transfers can never be optimal for the donor country, which not only suffers the loss of...

The theory of involuntary international transfers (war indemnities) has been constructed on the assumption that the donor and recipient are completely indifferent to each other's well-being. The assumption is hard to justify since usually the transfers closely follow periods during which the...