It is common for central governments, to delegate authority over the targeting of welfare programs to local community organizations - which may be better informed about who is poor, though possibly less accountable for getting the money to the local poor - while the center retains control over...

With the recent resurgence of interest in equity, inequality, and growth, the possibility of a negative relationship between inequality and economic growth, has received renewed interest in the literature. Faced with the prospect that high levels of inequality may persist, and give rise to...

After Mexico's financial crisis in 1994, the distribution of income, and labor earnings improved. Did inequality increase during the recession, as one would expect, since the rich have more ways to protect their assets than the poor do? After all, labor is poor people's only asset (the...

Most efforts to trace the effects of income inequality on growth have focused on redistribution. However, empirical investigation has not substantiated either the positive association of income inequality with redistribution or the negative association of redistribution with economic growth. The...

The author develops a general model for addressing the question of how to compensate tax inspectors in an economy where corruption is pervasive - a model that considers the existence of strategic transmission of information. Most of the literature on corruption assumes that the taxpayer and the...

The author assesses the performance of Latvia's system of social transfers, in three ways: First, he analyzes the incidence (who receives transfers) of pensions, family allowances, unemployment benefits, and social assistance. Per capita analysis shows pensions tending to be pro-rich, and...

In the 1980s and 1990s, economic growth (material progress) became the main development goal under the policies known as the"Washington Consensus". Earlier concerns about inequalities of income and wealth were replaced by policies emphasizing macroeconomic stabilization (reducing inflation and...