The purpose of this paper is to survey the theoretical literature on wealth transfer taxation. The focus is normative: we are looking at the design of an optimal tax structure from the standpoint of both equity and efficiency. The gist of this survey is that the optimal design crucially depends...

Altruism can be understood in a behavioral or in a psychological sense. Motivationally, altruism is the desire to enhance the welfare of others at a net welfare loss to oneself. Behaviorally, altruism is any act that could have resulted from altruistic motivations. The economic literature shows...

Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that material self-interest exclusively motivates all people. Experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence in recent years, however, that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis, suggesting...

Reciprocity is one of the main basic social relations that constitute societies. It consists of being favourable to others because others are favourable to you (and not from an exchange in the strict sense). It rests on three possible rationales: (1) balance (comparison, matching), often related...

Macmillan International Economic Association Series October 2000 400 pages Description: Reciprocity is a pervasive type of social interaction in encounters, groups and organizations. Simple giving is one of the major ways of transferring goods. And others regarding social sentiments, play...

I consider an abstract social system made of individual owners endowed with nonpaternalistic interdependent preferences, who interact by means of individual gifts and by exchanges on competitive markets. The existence of equilibrium is established. I identify the set of allocations that are...

Most organ transplants are from dead donors. National transplant organizations exhibit considerable differences in terms of their donor population rates. Spain’s organization is by far the most efficient in this respect. We argue that much of the productivity advantage of Spain’s transplant...

We consider abstract social systems of private property, made of n individuals endowed with non-paternalistic interdependent preferences, who interact through exchanges on competitive markets and Pareto-efficient lumpsum transfers. The transfers follow from a distributive liberal social contract...