This paper explores how to optimally set taxes and transfers when taxation authorities: (1) are uninformed about individuals? value of time in both market and non-market activities and (2) can observe both market-income and time allocated to market employment. We show that optimal redistribution...

We study the link between second-best production efficiency and the constraints on income distribution imposed by private ownership of firms in economies with Ramsey taxation. We review the result of Dasgupta and Stiglitz [1972], Mirrlees [1972], Hahn [1973], and Sadka [1977] about firm-specific...

This paper explores how to optimally set taxes and transfers when taxation authorities are uninformed about individuals' value of time in both market and nonmarket activities; and can observe both market-income and time allocated to market employment. We show that optimal redistribution in this...

Public policies often involve choices of alternatives in which the size and the composition of the population may vary. Examples are the allocation of resources to prenatal care and the design of aid packages to developing countries. In order to assess the corresponding feasible choices on...

Discussions of the morality of animal exploitation must deal with the fact that these activities result in animal populations that would not otherwise exist. In this paper, simple economic models of animal-using food production and research are combined with explicit ethical criteria that are...

This paper examines several families of population principles in the light of a set of axioms. In addition to the critical-level utilitarian, number-sensitive critical-level utilitarian and number-dampened families and their generalized counterparts, we consider the restricted number-dampened...

The use of partial equilibrium models is common, and, typically, efficiency is characterized by maximizing consumer plus producer surplus (or, sometimes, gross consumer surplus). The analysis appeals-implicitly or explicitly-to the concept of efficiency derived from general equilibrium models....