Redistribution, taxes, and the median voter

Marco Bassetto; Jess Benhabib

doi:10.1016/j.red.2006.02.001

Redistribution, taxes, and the median voter

Marco Bassetto, Jess Benhabib

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Abstract

We study a simple model of production, accumulation, and redistribution, where agents are heterogeneous in their initial wealth, and a sequence of redistributive tax rates is voted upon. Though the policy is infinite-dimensional, we prove that a median voter theorem holds if households have identical, Gorman aggregable preferences; furthermore, the tax policy preferred by the median voter has the "bang-bang" property.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	211-223
Number of pages	13
Journal	Review of Economic Dynamics
Volume	9
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2006.02.001
State	Published - Apr 2006

Keywords

Capital income taxes
Gorman aggregation
Median voter
Redistribution

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics

Access to Document

10.1016/j.red.2006.02.001

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Bassetto, M., & Benhabib, J. (2006). Redistribution, taxes, and the median voter. Review of Economic Dynamics, 9(2), 211-223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2006.02.001

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