Government redistribution is increasingly important in today's world. The effect of income distribution on industrialization and growth, and the causes of income redistribution have been studied in the contemporary literature. The normative significance of income redistribution, however, which...

This paper reviews some of the central issues that arise in thinking about the motives for, politics of, constraints on and measurement of, redistribution. Amongst the themes are: the potential usefulness of apparently inefficient policy instruments in overcoming the self-selection constraints...

We analyse the question of optimal taxation in a dual economy, when the government is concerned about the distribution of labour income. Income inequality is caused by the presence of sunk capital investments, which creates a good jobs sector due to the capture of quasi-rents by trade unions. We...

The authors investigate the desirability of income taxes when the objective is to mitigate wasteful conspicuous consumption generated by people's status-seeking behavior. They consider the joint role of pre-tax wage inequality and of social norms determining how social status is assigned. They...

The authors investigate the desirability of income taxes when the objective is to mitigate wasteful conspicuous consumption generated by people's status-seeking behavior. They consider the joint role of pre-tax wage inequality and of social norms determining how social status is assigned. They...

We estimate effective and optimal net income tax schedules and compare them to the estimated statutory rates for the case of Lithuania for the period 2014-2015. Values of effective net tax rates are estimated from the survey of EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions; the statutory net tax...

Should income transfers be conditional upon personal characteristics of the potential recipients (the so-called quot;taggingquot;) or should they only be tied to reported incomes? There is clear evidence that tagging and its assessment of the eligibility of applicants creates stigmatization. In...

We analyse the question of optimal taxation in a dual economy, when the government is concerned about the distribution of labour income. Income inequality is caused by the presence of sunk capital investments, which creates a "good jobs" sector due to the capture of quasi-rents by trade unions....

We consider optimal taxation in a model with wealth-poor and wealth-rich households, where wealth derives from business capital and home ownership, and investigate the consequences of a rising wealth inequality at steady state on these tax rates. The optimal tax structure includes some taxation...