We compare the long-run eects of replacing unconditional transfers to the poor by transfers conditional on the education of children. Unlike the Mirrlees income taxation model, the distribution of skill evolves endogenously. Human capital accumulation follows the...

Existing literature explains persistent inequality either by ongoing shocks to abilities or preferences, or by a combination of technological indivisibilities, capital market imperfections and ad hoc assumptions concerning savings behavior. We focus on the role of pecuniary externalities -...

This paper presents a theory of rent-seeking within farmer cooperatives in which inequality of asset ownership affects relative control rights of different groups of members. The two key assumptions are constraints on lumpsum transfers from poorer members and disproportionate control rights...

We study informal insurance within communities, explicitly recognizing the possibility that subgroups of individuals may destabilize insurance arrangements among the larger group. We therefore consider self--enforcing risk--sharing agreements that are robust not only to single--person deviations...

The authors consider the properties of equilibrium behavior in an aggregative growth model with intergenerational altruism. Various positive properties such as the cyclicity of equilibrium programs and the convergence of equilibrium stocks to a steady state, are analyzed. Among other normative...

We develop the measurement theory of polarization for the case in which income distributions can be described using density functions. The main theorem uniquely characterizes a class of polarization measures that fits into what we call the "identity-alienation" framework, and simultanously...

A group of agents voluntarily participates in a joint project, in which efforts are not perfectly substitutable. The output is divided according to some given vector of shares. A share vector is "unimprovable" if no other share vector yields a higher sum of payoffs. When the elasticity of...