This paper analyzes the impact of tax and transfers on income distribution. We use a simple Computable General Equilibrium model for Pakistan (CGEP) adapted from Lofgren et al. (2001). Our CGE model takes into account the market interactions, that is, the effects of pricing outcomes of one...

This article attempts to bring consumption into the study of redistributive politics. Analyzing data from 20 OECD countries over the period 1995-2007, I investigate whether factors that allowed lower and middle-income households to sustain their consumption had any impact on governments'...

The tax system is commonly understood to be professionally designed and administrated. This perception presupposes a level of neutrality where tax decisions are based on irrefutable reason and concrete data. In practice, however, both the design and administration of a tax system are subject to...

In a world of high capital mobility, governments may be tempted to undercut each other's capital income taxes to attract capital from abroad. Since such tax competition may have detrimental effects for all countries, European policy makers have debated the introduction of a minimum capital...

This paper analyzes whether changes in the timing of equalizing transfers to state governments necessitate an adjustment in federal corrective policy. According to the existing literature (assuming an ex-ante choice of transfers), the corrective grant is equal to the marginal damage/benefit...

Standard political economy models of redistribution, notably that of Meltzer and Richard (1981), fail to account for the remarkable variance in government redistribution across democracies. We develop a general model of redistribution that explains why some democratic governments are more prone...

We study the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on college students' government- and market-attitudes using within-subject comparisons of survey responses elicited before and after the onset of the pandemic. We find that support for markets significantly declines after the onset of the pandemic, with...

Productivity is a most important determinant of national wealth and standards of living. Scholars have shown that different welfare production regimes pursue distinct human capital formation policies to promote productivity. But do those government policies actually promote the productivity of...

Why do some countries in Latin America redistribute too much (“left-wing populism”), while others allow high levels of inequality to persist or even increase over time (“neo-liberalism”)? We argue that when a group's political influence is increasing in its wealth, there is a strategic...

A model where a portion of the population participates in illegal activities is developed. The propensity to participate in crimes depends on the probability and the opportunity cost of being arrested. The government can influence these variables by law enforcement expenditure and by social...