Equity, Incentives, and Taxation (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, 329)

Redistribution is one of the most fundamental issues in welfare economics. In connection with this term the following questions directly arise: What is a good redistribution ? Which (governmental) instruments should be used to attain it ? Is there a "best instrument" if several of them are available? Or, to express it more generally, which allocations are at all attainable if special instruments are at hand ? All these questions are formulated in an extremely vague way. It will be the task of the following work to make these questions precise and to give answers - as far as possible. It is a matter of course that these answers will not be exhaustive because redistribution is too wide a field. I have used the word "instrument" intentionally. In doing so, Iwanted to indicate that it is not necessary to restrict oneself to income - or commodity taxes as is common place in public finance when aiming at redistribution.