Journal Article
Optimal taxation and public provision for poverty reduction
The existing literature on optimal taxation typically assumes there exists a capacity to implement complex tax schemes, which is not necessarily the case for many developing countries. We examine the determinants of optimal redistributive policies in...
Working Paper
Welfare losses, preferences for redistribution, and political participation
This paper studies the effect of austerity on forms of political participation—including voting, appealing for reform, and peaceful protesting—and the role of preferences for redistribution in shaping the relationship between individual exposure to...
Book Chapter
Inequality and growth
What is the relationship between inequality and growth? This question has occupied and fascinated social scientists for more than a century. This chapter critically reviews the recent empirical and theoretical literature on the complex interplay...
Working Paper
‘Delangokubona’ and the distribution of rents and opportunity
Capital spending on infrastructure presents a significant counter-cyclical tool, however contested it might be in a society as unequal as South Africa. The history of racial capitalism, race-based exclusion from economic participation, and an...
Working Paper
Inequality and growth: a review on a great open debate in economics
What is the relationship between inequality and growth? This question has occupied and fascinated social scientists for more than a century. This article critically reviews the recent empirical and theoretical literature on the complex interplay...
Working Paper
Worker retraining and transfer payments
We conduct an incentive-theoretical analysis of political economy considerations in the design of social protection programmes in developing countries to accompany economic reforms. We focus on two aspects of social protection—the provision of...
Working Paper
The political economy of ‘linked’ progressive taxation in Africa and Latin America
One key element in the reduction of poverty and (in Latin America) inequality has been the achievement of greater fiscal equity; we analyse one key part of this process, which is the earmarking of portions of tax revenue to be spent on progressive...
Working Paper
Redistribution around the world
This paper re-examines the determinants and consequences of redistribution in light of improved data and methods relative to earlier literature. In particular, we use the latest version of the UNU-WIDER’s Income Inequality Database to have the best...
Working Paper
Welfare and redistributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
This paper presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration, which has interlinked with, and partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological...
Working Paper
In praise of snapshots
The conventional justification for moving from income distribution to intergenerational mobility analysis is that the movie encompasses the snapshot and is normatively superior as the basis for assessing policy. Such a perspective underpins many an...
Working Paper
Fiscal redistribution in Brazil
This paper assesses causes and consequences of fiscal redistribution in Brazil. The framework proposed allows evaluating in an integrated manner the impacts of government-sponsored actions in inequality and mean income changes on social welfare...
Journal Special Issue
Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
This special issue presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration. It partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological transitions and rapid...