We study the political economy of the environment in autocratic, weak and strong democracies when individuals can either mitigate the health consequences of domestic pollution privately or reduce pollution collectively through public policy. The setting is that of a small open economy in which...

We provide an analytical-behavioral explanation for the observed positive relationship between income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, and the incentive to migrate. We show that a higher total relative deprivation of a population leads to a stronger incentive to engage in...

This paper addresses the problem of the normative evaluation of income tax systems and income tax reforms. While most of the existing criteria, framed in the utilitarian tradition, are uniquely based on information about individual incomes, this paper, building upon the opportunity egalitarian...

This paper analyzes the individual-level determinants of wage inequality for Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador from 2001 to 2010. Using a rich annual data set from surveys in all three countries, we analyze wages both using conventional wage regressions and decompositions of standard Gini indices....

We examine the relationship between capitalism and income inequality for a large sample of countries using an adjusted economic freedom index as proxy for capitalism and Gini coefficients based on gross-income as proxy for income inequality. Our results suggest that there is no robust...

This paper constructs a simple theoretical model to study the implications of globalization for inequality and redistribution. It shows that when globalization increases inequality, a policymaker interested in maximizing the sum of welfares of all agents increases redistribution. Empirically,...

In Sub-Saharan Africa we find some of the highest levels of income inequality in the world. Nevertheless, we generally know very little about the historical development of inequality. In this paper we look at how inequality developed in colonial and post-colonial Botswana. We show that income...

We reconcile, both theoretically and empirically, changes in inequality with panel income changes over periods of economic growth and decline. We also explore what factors account for the trends of short-run inequality and of inequality in individual average earnings. Finally, we explore what...

During the last decades, China has experienced double-digit economic growth rates and rising inequality. This paper implements a new decomposition on the China Health and Nutrition panel Survey (1991-2006) to examine the extent to which changes in level and distribution of incomes and in income...

The goal of this paper is to apply the theory of the political Kuznets curve to Russia and reveal the key determinants of the probability of recent protests during 2011-2012 in the Russian regions. We apply the political Kuznets curve in the time and spatial dimensions, and find mixed evidence:...