Suchergebnisse

This paper studies an election game between two politicians, in which each provides income transfers to special‐interest groups in return for political contributions. It is shown that a move to a more inefficient form of transfers may lower the total excess burden created by these transfers, because the politicians are induced to reduce their provision of transfers. For the case in which the income transfers are indirectly provided as trade protection to import‐competing industries, a switch from production subsidies to tariffs as the form of protection reduces the equilibrium level of excess burden and makes both politicians better off.

This paper constructs a model in which taxation and public expenditure decisions are made by two decision makers: a "benevolent planner," who treats all consumers equally in the measurement of welfare; and a "Leviathan planner," who places more weight on the utilities of "favored consumers." The benevolent planner can restrict the Leviathan planner's power to tax, but cannot control the allocation of expenditures between desirable public goods and income transfers to favored consumers. Several types of tax restrictions are shown to be welfare‐improving from the benevolent planner's viewpoint. These restrictions include a reduction in the size of the tax base, although administrative costs already prevent the Leviathan planner from taxing all commodities.