Inequality and Optimal Redistribution

From the 1980s onward, income inequality increased in many advanced countries. It is very difficult to account for the rise in income inequality using the standard labour supply/demand explanation. Fiscal redistribution has become less effective in compensating increasing inequalities since the 1990s. Some of the basic features of redistribution can be explained through the optimal tax framework developed by J. A. Mirrlees in 1971. This Element surveys some of the earlier results in linear ...