Wealthy individuals often voluntarily provide public goods that the poor also consume. Such philanthropy is perceived as legitimizing one’s wealth. Governments routinely exempt the rich from taxation on grounds of their charitable expenditure. We examine the normative logic of this exemption....

In recent years there has been much discussion of the difference between Inequality and Polarization. The vast literature on inequality is held to miss out key features of distribution change, which are better described as changes in the polarization. Axioms have been proposed which capture some...

This paper presents an overview of the economics of international aid, highlighting the historical literature and the contemporary debates. It reviews the "trade-theoretic" and the "contract-theoretic" analytical literature, and the empirical and institutional literature. It demonstrates a great...

What exactly is 'economic marginalization'? How should one conceptualize it, and what are the implications of such conceptualization? Economic marginalization can be conceptualized as outcome or as process (or structure). On outcomes, marginalization can be a static description, or a dynamic...

Textbook analysis tells us that in a competitive labor market, the introduction of a minimum wage above the competitive equilibrium wage will cause unemployment. This paper makes two contributions to the basic theory of the minimum wage. First, we analyze the effects of a higher minimum wage in...

This paper develops a framework for thinking about the policy challenge of scaling up small scale interventions, governmental and non-governmental, that address poverty reduction successfully. The framework sees scaling up as addressing different components of market failure, government failure...

In this note we approach the question of relative poverty from a different angle. Fixing the poverty line, we ask: What is the extent of poverty relative to the resources available in the society to eradicate it? We argue that the same level of poverty is “worse†if the resources...

This paper is a review of the post-war literature on income distribution and development. It argues that the literature has cycled from one consensus to another, responding to emerging policy issues and new analysis. On the basis of the review, the paper identifies five areas that will command...

It is widely recognised that optimal tax/transfer schemes will generally involve elements of both 'tagging' (the use of categorical benefits) and 'means-testing' (Income-relation of benefits). This paper explores the optimal design of such mixed schemes. Simulations suggest a striking...