The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool for recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi’s model of the veil of ignorance by appending information permitting interpersonal comparability of welfare. We show that the...

We study a vertically differentiated market where two firms simultaneously choose the quality and price of the good they sell and where consumers may also care for the average quality of the goods supplied. Firms are composed of two factions whose objectives differ: one is maximizing profit...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and adopt a generalised version of Roemer's (1998) Equality of Opportunity (EOp) framework for analysing optimal income taxation. EOp optimal tax rules seek to equalise income differentials arising from factors beyond the control of the individual....

This project employs the theory of equality of opportunity, described in Roemer’s book (Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press, 1998), to compute the extent to which tax-and-transfer regimes in ten countries equalize opportunities among citizens for income acquisition. Roughly...

Based on theoretical models of budget-balanced social insurance and individual choice, we argue that in addition to the well-known empathy mechanism whereby ethnic heterogeneity undermines sentiments of solidarity among a citizenry to reduce welfare generosity, population heterogeneity affects...

Voters in India are often perceived as being biased in favor of parties that claim to represent their caste. We incorporate this caste bias into voter preferences and examine its influence on the distributive policies and corruption practices of the two major political parties in the North...

We calibrate a sequence of four nested models to study the dynamics of wealth accumulation. Individuals maximize a utility function whose arguments are consumption and investment. They desire to accumulate wealth for its own sake — this is not a life-cycle model. A competitive firm produces a...

We show how to minimize the probability of misclassifying individuals as being poor or not poor when data on some of their relevant attributes are missing, but an estimate of the population distribution of attributes is available.

Top economists provide much-needed guidance--and some surprising conclusions--in response to rising public concerns about inequality in the U.S. tax system.