This note extends Lucas' (1987) analysis to assess welfare gains of economic growth and welfare costs of consumption inequality, both within and across countries. We find that the welfare costs of inequality are significantly larger than the gains of economic growth. While the gains of economic...

This note is motivated by recent arguments made by Martin Feldstein in which the relevance of inequality is dismissed (if everybody's income goes up, who cares if inequality is up too?), and the argument is made that only poverty alleviation should matter. This note shows that we all do care...

The effects of globalization on income distribution within rich and poor countries are a matter of controversy. While international trade theory in its most abstract formulation implies that increased trade and foreign investment should make income distribution more equal in poor countries and...

In this study we make an attempt to visualize the structure of the economy of Udalguri Subdivision of Assam, India. The structure of an economy comprises the characteristic features of and the interrelationships among its constituent parts and subsystems. These characteristic features and...

The objective of the paper is to answer an often-asked question : if tariff rates are reduced, what will happen to wage inequality ? We consider two types of wage inequality : between occupations (skills premium), and between industries. We use two large data bases of wage inequality that have...

We summarize the main features and results of the literature on marginal commodity tax reforms as initiated by Ahmad and Stern (1984) and developed further by Yitzhaki and Thirsk (1990). We establish new links with other fields of research, namely the literature on the use of equivalence scales...

Lucas (2004) asserts that 'Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion, the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution...The potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current...

Emphasis on market-friendly macroeconomic and development strategies in recent years has resulted in deleterious effects on growth and well- being, and has done little to promote greater gender equality. This paper argues that the example of East Asia states, which recognized their position as...

We study the effects of unequal representation in the interest-group system on the degree of information transmission between a lobbyist and a policymaker. Employing a dynamic cheap-talk model in which the lobbyist cares instrumentally about his reputation for truthtelling, we show that the...

Prices differ across space: from province to province, from rural (or urban) areas in one province to rural (or urban) areas in another province, and from rural to urban areas within one province. Systematic differences in prices across a range of goods and services in different localities imply...