Social security programs generally seek to provide insurance and to reduce poverty and inequality. Providing insurance requires little redistribution. But reducing inequality and alleviating poverty do require redistribution. To reduce inequality, programs must redistribute income, but...

Governments usually play an active role in helping the less fortunate. The results, however, seem to be mixed. Some have been considered quite successful, while others have been less so. The aim of this paper is to provide a unified theoretical framework to analyze these experiences. The...

The contribution of government transfer programs to inequality is often assessed by analyzing to what extent the benefits paid go to lower income families. Several analysts have found that some key government transfers actually go mostly to middle and high income families and thus contribute to...