This paper develops a dynamic framework to analyze the political sustainability of economic reforms in developing countries. First, we demonstrate that economic reforms that are proceeding successfully may run into a political impasse, with the reform's initial success having a negative impact...

A common, though by no means universally-accepted doctrine among practitioners of law and economics is that redistribution is no business of the law. This efficiency-only doctrine is not that redistribution is unworthy as a social objective, but that any given benefit to the poor is attainable...

This paper studies optimal linear income taxation and redistributive social insurance when the former has the traditional labor distortion and the latter generates both ex ante and ex post moral hazard. Private insurance is available and individuals differ in labor productivity and in loss...

We examine how the introduction of self-control preferences influences the trade-off between two fundamental components of a public pension system: the contribution rate and its degree of redistribution. The pension regime affects individuals' welfare by altering how yielding to temptation (i.e....

The effect of a widening of the distribution of income upon society's choice of the amount of redistribution is a balancing of two opposing forces: the increase in redistribution in response to the increased ratio of mean to median income and the decrease in response to the greater advertising...

Redistribution programs are constrained because those not working may be either unable to work, voluntarily unemployed or involuntarily unemployed. The inability to distinguish among these three cases inhibits the targeting of transfers to those most in need. Enabling the government to monitor...

This paper, prepared for the Handbook of Income Distribution (edited by A.B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon), 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...