Showing papers by "Thomas Piketty published in 1996"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study a natural intermediate mechanism between full independence and full federalism by introducing flexible divisions of the surplus generated by the removal of these externalities, and show that every country always benefits from entering this mechanism combining the benefits of common decision-making with those of flexibility.
37 citations
Posted Content•
18 citations
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the state of theoretical and empirical research on the politics of redistribution and draw conclusions about future research priorities, and contrast public choice models with models emphasizing the role of altruistic political attitudes and learning as well as with models stressing the role role of party behavior.
Abstract: This note attempts to present the state of theoretical and empirical research on the politics of redistribution and to draw conclusions about future research priorities. I contrast public choice models with models emphasizing the role of altruistic political attitudes and learning as well as with models stressing the role of party behavior. I also contrast methods of empirical testing based upon regressions between aggregate variables with those based upon data about individual political attitudes. The poor empirical performance of basic public-choice models suggests the following research agenda. At the theoretical level, we need better theories of party behavior as well as theories that allow to distinguish between different types of redistribution: transfers to the elderly vs the unemployed vs the working poor, fiscal redistribution vs wage policy and price distorsions, "pure" redistribution vs "redistributive investments", etc.. Regarding empirical research, two priorities emerge: we need to construct more dissagregated crosscountry data sets about actual redistributive policies, and we also need to shift our attention towards individual-level data by putting together the existing surveys about individual political attitudes in different countries.
11 citations