This paper 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.
