This paper is concerned with the optimal use of income information in the design of tax/transfer systems to alleviate poverty. The issue is one of optimal non-linear income taxation, but using a non-welfarist objective function that seems to accord well with the common concerns of policy debate:...

Closer international integration is putting increasing pressure on existing national tax structures. this paper uses a simple two-country model to address a range of policy concerns that consequently arise, focusing particularly on the role of national size. Differences in size exacerbate the...

This essay examines the evolution of thinking on development and development policy, with a special focus on economic issues, in the last fifty years. In particular, it explores the interaction between ideology and experience in determining the course of economic thinking and policy on...

There is a glaring paradox in all commonly used measures of poverty. The death of a poor person, because of poverty, reduces poverty according to these measures. This surely violates our basic intuitions of how poverty measures should behave. It cannot be right in concept that differentially...

So what’s social policy got to do with economic growth? Quite a lot, it would appear, if one takes the results of cross-country growth regressions at face value, as they are by many social policy analysts, even as they criticize the findings of the economic policy part of the very same...

Spatial inequality is a dimension of overall inequality, but it has added significance when spatial and regional divisions align with political and ethnic tensions to undermine social and political stability.The UNU-Wider project on ‘Spatial disparities in development’, directed by...

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....

In 1994 South Africa saw the end of apartheid. The new era of political freedom was seen as the foundation for economic prosperity and inclusion. The last two decades have seen mixed results. Economic growth has been volatile. While inequalities in public services have been reduced, income...

Africa is a diverse continent. But is there a pattern to the diversity? Are there commonalities across the countries? And what does economics tell us about the diversity and the commonalities? The Oxford Companion to the Economics of Africa is a definitive and comprehensive account of the key...