Redistribution

Robin Boadway and Michael Keen

No 983, Working Paper from Economics Department, Queen's University

Abstract: This paper, prepared for the Handbook of Income Distribution (edited by A.B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon), reviews some of the central issues that arise in thinking about the motives for, politics of, constraints on and measurement of, redistribution. Amongst the themes are: the potential usefulness of apparently inefficient policy instruments in overcoming the self-selection constraints on redistribution and limiting the damage that ill-intentioned policymakers can do; the continued (perhaps increased) ignorance as to the effective incidence of many key taxes and benefits; and, while there are circumstances in which redistribution may plausibly generate efficiency gains, the likelihood that some trade-off between equity and efficiency is inescapable.

Keywords: Inequality; Redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 D6 D7 H2 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 123 pages
Date: 1999-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

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https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/qed_wp_983.pdf First version 1999 (application/pdf)

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Chapter: Redistribution (2000)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qed:wpaper:983

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