IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sunrpe/2003_0002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public Ownership and Income Redistribution

Author

Listed:

Abstract

The large differences among advanced OECD countries in the shares of workers that are employed by the government can probably only to a small part be explained by factors that are in the center of modern organization theory explanations for public vs. private ownership. This paper explores a new hypothesis for explaining the share of government employment. It is based on asymmetric information about individual worker productivity between the taxman, and workers and their employers. Hence, government employment opens up policy options, not available with only private production. The hypothesis is that government employment is an efficient element of redistribution policy. The mechanism is that the government can, through its employment policy, increase the relative scarcity in the private sector of the workers the government wants to redistribute in favor of. That increases their wages and lowers the need for redistribution through the tax- and transfer systems, which mitigates distortions. One can therefore expect large government employment in countries where the tolerance of inequality is low.

Suggested Citation

  • Lundholm, Michael & Wijkander, Hans, 2002. "Public Ownership and Income Redistribution," Research Papers in Economics 2003:2, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2003_0002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.ne.su.se/paper/wp03_02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    2. J. E. Stiglitz & P. Dasgupta, 1971. "Differential Taxation, Public Goods, and Economic Efficiency," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 151-174.
    3. Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 1997. "Privatization in the United States," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(3), pages 447-471, Autumn.
    4. Tirole, Jean, 1994. "The Internal Organization of Government," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, January.
    5. Naito, Hisahiro, 1999. "Re-examination of uniform commodity taxes under a non-linear income tax system and its implication for production efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 165-188, February.
    6. Partha Dasgupta & Joseph Stiglitz, 1972. "On Optimal Taxation and Public Production," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 39(1), pages 87-103.
    7. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1127-1161.
    8. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1982. "Self-selection and Pareto efficient taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 213-240, March.
    9. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December.
    10. N. S. Blomquist & U. Hansson-Brusewitz, 1990. "The Effect of Taxes on Male and Female Labor Supply in Sweden," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(3), pages 317-357.
    11. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    12. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1991. "Economic Perspectives on Privatization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
    13. Peter A. Diamond & J. A. Mirrlees, 1968. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production," Working papers 22, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    14. Oskar Lange, 1936. "On the Economic Theory of Socialism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(1), pages 53-71.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Velasquez-Donaldson, 2007. "Analysis of the Hydrocarbon Sector in Bolivia: How are the Gas and Oil Revenues Distributed?," Development Research Working Paper Series 06/2007, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2018. "Pareto efficient taxation and expenditures: Pre- and re-distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 101-119.
    2. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2002. "New perspectives on public finance: recent achievements and future challenges," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 341-360, December.
    3. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "How Should Capital Be Taxed?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 812-846, September.
    4. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    5. Sapienza, Paola, 2002. "What Do State-Owned Firms Maximize? Evidence from the Italian Banks," CEPR Discussion Papers 3168, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Hisahiro Naito, 2006. "Redistribution, production inefficiency and decentralized efficiency," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(5), pages 625-640, September.
    7. Helsley, Robert W. & Strange, William C., 2000. "Potential competition and public sector performance," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 405-428, July.
    8. Huizinga, Harry & Nielsen, Soren Bo, 2001. "Privatization, public investment, and capital income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 399-414, December.
    9. Hisahiro Naito, 2016. "Optimal Shadow Prices for the Public Sector in the Presence of a Non-linear Income Tax System in an Open Economy," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2016-003, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.
    10. Alexander Fink, 2018. "The Political Economy of State-Owned Lotteries," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 257-272, September.
    11. Nepal, Rabindra & Foster, John, 2015. "Electricity networks privatization in Australia: An overview of the debate," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 12-24.
    12. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Hummel, Albert Jan & Ziesemer, Vinzenz, 2023. "Food subsidies in general equilibrium," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    14. Randall Holcombe, 2005. "Government growth in the twenty-first century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 95-114, July.
    15. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2004. "The Efficiency of Public Sector Outsourcing Contracts: A Literature Review," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n29, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Hisahiro Naito, 2003. "Atkinson and Stiglitz Theorem with Endogenous Human Capital Accumulation," ISER Discussion Paper 0596, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    17. Lee, David & Saez, Emmanuel, 2012. "Optimal minimum wage policy in competitive labor markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 739-749.
    18. Florian Scheuer, 2014. "Entrepreneurial Taxation with Endogenous Entry," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 126-163, May.
    19. Arnaud Costinot & Iván Werning, 2023. "Robots, Trade, and Luddism: A Sufficient Statistic Approach to Optimal Technology Regulation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2261-2291.
    20. Lulfesmann, Christoph, 2007. "On the virtues of privatization when government is benevolent," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 17-34, September.
    21. Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The desirability of commodity taxation under non-linear income taxation and heterogeneous tastes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 217-230, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Structure and Scope of Government; Optimal non-linear income taxation; public production; production efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2003_0002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Jensen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/neisuse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.