Redistributing Smarter: Self-Selection, Targeting and Non-Conventional Policy Instruments

Modern public economic theory emphasizes imperfect information as the ultimate constraint on redistribution policy: the needy are hard to identify. To target transfers efficiently, the standard tax-transfer system with its reliance on self-reporting needs to be supplemented by other devices designed to separate the needy from the non-needy. These include the use of in-kind transfers, quantity and price controls, and monitoring by welfare administrators. The role of such devices as part of the mix of redistribution policies and their potential implications for rationalizing the Canadian transfer system are summarized.