The dominant view in tax law and policy is that achieving the optimal balance of revenue, efficiency, and equity generally requires basing taxes and transfers solely on income from labor and not also on other potentially taxable attributes such as income from capital. The optimality of...

One of the most important conclusions of recent theoretical work on the economics of inequality is the recognition that equity and efficiency represent complementary policy goals in many contexts. In this essay, I examine possible complementarities between equality and efficiency from the...

The Gini coefficient features prominently in Amartya Sen’s 1973 and 1997 seminal work on income inequality and social welfare. We construct the Gini coefficient from social-psychological building blocks, reformulating it as a ratio between a measure of social stress and aggregate income. We...

This paper attempts to explicitly integrate the idea of reference group when measuring relative deprivation. It assumes that in assessing her situation in society an individual compares herself with individuals whose environment can be considered as being similar to hers. By environment we mean...

The Gini coefficient features prominently in Amartya Sen's 1973 and 1997 seminal work on income inequality and social welfare. We construct the Gini coefficient from socialpsychological building blocks, reformulating it as a ratio between a measure of social stress and aggregate income. We...