We provide a case for maintaining welfare and income redistribution programs even when their adverse general equilibrium effects reduce total earnings of poor households. Using a Cournot model of intra-household decision-making, we show that even if welfare cutbacks generate large increases in...

The standard theory of anti - poverty targeting assumes individual incomes cannot be observed, but statistical properties of income distribution in broadly defined groups are known. "Indicator targeting" rules are then derived for the forms of transfers conditioned on group membership of...

There exist large variations in juvenile sex ratios across districts and social groups in India. Economic and cultural factors have been advanced as contending explanations for these variations. We propose a household optimization model that integrates cultural explanations with economic ones....

We develop an integrated, general equilibrium, model of how the presence of vertical ties of "community" between sections of workers and sections of capitalists can critically affect the distribution of income between capitalists as a class and workers as a class, as well as between workers...

We investigate how voluntary contributions to community-specific public goods affect (a) the relationship between inequality of incomes and inequality of welfare outcomes, and (b) individuals' material incentives fo r supporting income redistribution. We show that the nominal distribution of...

We analyze conflicts between communities. A community-specific public good, to which members make voluntary contributions, defines communities. Some, but not all, members of one community may contribute towards another community's public good. Such ‘bridging’ contributions will not occur...

We examine the consequences of parental control over choice of wives for sons, for parental incentives to educate daughters, in a dualistic transitional economy, where preferences conflict across generations and the marriage market exhibits competitive dowry payments. Parental control generates...

We examine the impact of economic deregulation on employer evasion of union-mandated "formal" wage-contracts in an import-competing industry. We show that, if the state maintains industrial employment despite import liberalisation, through cheaper credit to firms, then employer evasion will...

Wealthy individuals often voluntarily provide public goods that the poor also consume. Such philanthropy is perceived as legitimizing one's wealth. Governments routinely exempt the rich from taxation on grounds of their charitable expenditure. We examine the normative logic of this exemption. We...

We model simultaneous inter and within identity-group conflict in two territories connected by cross-territorial spill-overs. Within each territory, two groups contest the division of a group-specific public good, and all members contest the division of group income. Each group has a...