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Under a deadweight loss of tax and transfer, there is tension between the optimal policy choices of a Rawlsian social planner and a utilitarian social planner. However, when with a weight greater than a certain critical value the individuals' utility functions incorporate distaste for low relative income, a utilitarian will select exactly the same income distribution as a Rawlsian.

Using a natural field experiment in a recreational site, a public good almost fully dependent on voluntary donations, we explored the crowding-out effect of gift rewards. First, we investigated whether receiving a map in appreciation of a donation crowded out prosocial behavior and found no significant effect of giving the map. Second, we explored the effect of adding the map to a treatment designed to increase donations. Interestingly, when the gift was combined with our attempt to trigger reputational and self image motives, the probability of donating decreased significantly, compared to the social reference treatment alone.

This paper deals with optimal income taxation under international outsourcing and FDI. We show how the joint effect of outsourcing and FDI on the optimal marginal income tax rates depends on whether FDI is horizontal or vertical.

We provide three alternative characterizations of the proportional solution defined on compact and comprehensive bargaining problems with claims that are not necessarily convex. One characterization result is obtained by using, together with other standard axioms, two solidarity axioms. Another characterization theorem shows that the single-valuedness axiom is dispensable even within the class of nonconvex problems if the standard symmetry axiom is imposed.

Cost-benefit analysis as performed by governments and public-sector organisations typically applies equal weights to changes in incomes accruing to individuals from projects even when there is no proposal to compensate losers. One reason for the use of equal weights despite the absence of a theoretical justification for this practice is that all weights appear arbitrary. This note proposes the use of weights based on two axioms: (1) that all lives should be equally valued, and (2) that the monetary value attached to a person's life should be his or her own. This implies weights that are proportional to the reciprocals of the values of statistical lives