Should Income Inequality be Praised? Multiple Public Goods Provision, Income Distribution and Social Welfare
CESifo, Munich, 2016
CESifo Working Paper No. 6215
We investigate how income inequality affects social welfare in a model of voluntary contributions to multiple pure public goods. Itaya, de Meza, and Myles (1997) show that the maximization of social welfare precludes income equality in a single pure public good model. In contrast, we show that the result of Itaya et al. may not be valid in a case of multiple voluntarily supplied public goods; specifically, we show that not only an income inequality-raising redistribution policy but also an income-equalizing one may raise social welfare. We also show that if altruistically motivated voluntary transfers are allowed, an inequality-raising redistribution policy is no longer effective and leaves social welfare unchanged.
Public Finance
Public Choice