Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/67801 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Queen's Economics Department Working Paper No. 1210
Publisher: 
Queen's University, Department of Economics, Kingston (Ontario)
Abstract: 
A common, though by no means universally-accepted doctrine among practitioners of law and economics is that redistribution is no business of the law. This efficiency-only doctrine is not that redistribution is unworthy as a social objective, but that any given benefit to the poor is attainable at a lower cost to the rich through taxation than through the choice of legal rules. The rationale for the efficiency-only doctrine is that redistributive law creates a double distortion: an initial distortion arising from redistribution pre se, through taxation or through law, and an additional distortion all its own. The efficiency-only doctrine is sometimes valid, but is far narrower than its advocates would seem to suggest, and is inapplicable to most of what is commonly thought of as redistributive law. Redistribution is best supplied by a balance of law and taxation.
Subjects: 
Law
Income Tax
Redistribution
JEL: 
H21
H26
K10
K34
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
474.41 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.