The Equal Sacrifice Principle Revisited

Peter Lambert () and Helen Naughton
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Peter Lambert: Department of Economics, University of Oregon

No 45, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: What does an equal sacrifice tax look like in the case of a rank-dependent social welfare function? One's tax liability evidently becomes a function of one's income and one's position in the distribution in such a case, but not much else appears to be known. (Menahem Yaari touched upon the issue in his paper "A controversial proposal concerning inequality measurement", Journal of Economic Theory 1988, but focused only on a poll tax). In this paper, we determine the properties of the equal sacrifice tax for a wide class of rank-dependent social welfare functions, and integrate the theory with that already available for the class of utilitarian social welfare functions. In an additional step, we analyze the equal sacrifice tax for a class of mixed utilitarian and rank-dependent social welfare functions, and finally we review what this synthesis has achieved.

Keywords: equal sacrifice; income tax; equity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 H22 H23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: The Equal Sacrifice Principle Revisited (2006)
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