Working Paper
Risk-Aversion and Social Mobility: The Impossibility of Order-Preserving Income Redistributions
Leif Danziger, Heinrich Ursprung
CESifo, Munich, 2000
CESifo Working Paper No. 321
CESifo, Munich, 2000
CESifo Working Paper No. 321
The traditional criticism notwithstanding, we show that social mobility can, in principle, explain political income redistributions. Nonetheless, the social-mobility argument for redistribution is not satisfactory, as actual transition probabilities are not consistent with order-preserving redistributions.
Keywords: Political economy, social mobility, income redistribution