Inequality, mobility and redistributive politics

Mobility and Redistributive Politics

There is a widespread concern that a greater mobility of individuals can undermine any attempt to redistribute income at the local level. In this paper we derive the equilibrium level of redistribution when both the rich and the poor are mobile (although in diierent degrees) and when each jurisdiction chooses its redistributive policy by majority voting. This leads to a fundamental interaction ...

Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics

Acknowledgments This project began with a workshop supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in May 2010, at which authors presented initial drafts of their chapters. We owe a special debt of thanks to Deanna Pikkov, who helped organize both the workshop and the successful SSHRC grant application that funded it. Numerous colleagues and graduate students ...

Redistributive politics with distortionary taxation

We extend the discussion of redistributive politics across electoral systems to allow for taxation to be distortionary. We allow politicians to choose any tax rate between zero and unity and then redistribute the money collected. We build on the model put forward by Myerson (1993) and Lizzeri and Persico (2001 and 2005) to show that the use of distortionnary taxation can be understood as an ana...

Social mobility and redistributive taxation

The politics of redistributive social insurance

This paper analyses the political support for a social insurance that includes elements of redistribution when there exists an imperfect private insurance alternative. Individuals differ both in their income and risk. The social insurance is compulsory and charges an income-related contribution with pooling of risks. The private insurance is voluntary and charges a contribution based on individ...