scholarly journals Income Equalization Does Not Confer Net Social Benefits

Ekonomia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-23
Author(s):  
Walter E. Block ◽  
Jonathan Lingenfelter ◽  
Lucas M. Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Income Redistribution ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Income Equality ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Interpersonal Utility Comparisons

Income Equalization Does Not Confer Social Benefits In the modern era, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about income and wealth disparities. The premise upon which these complaints are based is that egalitarianism is an unambiguous good, and that any and all steps would be taken to reduce gaps between the wealthy and the poor. The present paper is an attempt to right this imbalance; it makes the case that income and wealth differences should be neutral with regard to public policy: they should not be artificially increased or reduced. This view is defended on both economic and ethical grounds. On the economic side, the impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons, the existence of loss aversion, questions about productivity responses to redistribution, and the undeniable reality of bureaucratic costs all call into question the wisdom of income redistribution. On the ethical side, a rights-based approach calls into question the egalitarian basis for income redistribution policies. In the end, income equality or inequality falls outside the realm of valid policy concerns.

In-cash Transfers: from Passive to Empowered Beneficiaries in the Global South

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Katarina Pitasse Fragoso
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Public Services ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Public Policy Decisions

Over the last few years, there has been an increase in discussions advocating in-cash programmes as a way to alleviate poverty. Indeed, this represents a leap forward in comparison to in-kind programmes. However, little progress, at least in developing countries, has been achieved in answering the question of how the state should transfer the means of redressing deprivation to those who are living in poverty. This article addresses this issue by challenging anti-poverty programmes through a social-egalitarian framework. My main argument starts from the perspective that in-cash transfers are a necessary but not sufficient mechanism for poverty alleviation. I acknowledge that cash alone does not guarantee the poor an equally active role in influencing the public-policy decisions that affect their lives. I then suggest a participatory device to complement the cash-transfer proposal in order to give institutional opportunities to the poor to decide, together with practitioners, what should be done at the level of local public services.

scholarly journals Reflections on the Ethics of Social Experimentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Macartan Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Ethical Guidelines ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Standard Procedures ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
Social Experimentation

AbstractSocial scientists are increasingly engaging in experimental research projects of importance for public policy in developing areas. While this research holds the possibility of producing major social benefits, it may also involve manipulating populations, often without consent, sometimes with potentially adverse effects, and often in settings with obvious power differentials between researcher and subject. Such research is currently conducted with few clear ethical guidelines. In this paper I discuss research ethics as currently understood in this field, highlighting the limitations of standard procedures and the need for the construction of appropriate ethics, focusing on the problems of determining responsibility for interventions and assessing appropriate forms of consent.

scholarly journals Income Redistribution Predicts Greater Life Satisfaction Across Individual, National, and Cultural Characteristics.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Income Redistribution ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Strong Hypothesis ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Over Time

The widening income gap between the rich and the poor has important social implications. Governmental-level income redistribution through tax and welfare policies presents an opportunity to reduce income inequality and its negative consequences. The current longitudinal studies examined whether within-region changes in income redistribution over time relate to life satisfaction. Moreover, I examined potential moderators of this relationship to test the strong versus weak hypotheses of income redistribution. The strong hypothesis posits that income redistribution is beneficial to most. The weak hypothesis posits that income redistribution is beneficial to some and damaging to others. Using a nationally representative sample of 57,932 German respondents from 16 German states across 30 years (Study 1) and a sample of 112,876 respondents from 33 countries across 24 years (Study 2), I found that within-state and within-nation changes in income redistribution over time were associated with life satisfaction. The models predicted that a 10% reduction in Gini through income redistribution in Germany increased life satisfaction to the same extent as an 37% increase in annual income (Study 1), and a 5% reduction in Gini through income redistribution increased life satisfaction to the same extent as a 11% increase in GDP (Study 2). These associations were positive across individual, national, and cultural characteristics. Increases in income redistribution predicted greater satisfaction for tax-payers and welfare-receivers, for liberals and conservatives, and for the poor and the rich. These findings support the strong hypothesis of income redistribution and suggest that redistribution policies may play an important role in societal well-being.

Social Justicitis

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tomasi
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Adverse Reaction ◽  
Allergic Reaction ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Spontaneous Order ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Bee Sting ◽  
Adequacy Condition

This chapter examines what it calls “social justicitis”—a strongly negative, even allergic, reaction to the ideal of social or distributive justice. Social justicitis is a malady from which many defenders of private economic liberty suffer. For libertarians, arguments on behalf of social justice may be as threatening as a bee sting is to some people. In the case of classical liberals, social justicitis arises as an adverse reaction to talk about social justice at the level of public policy. The chapter first considers the notion of distributional adequacy condition from the perspective of classical liberalism and libertarianism before discussing the arguments of classical liberals and libertarians regarding property and the poor. It also explores F. A. Hayek's critique of social justice and the implications of his theory of spontaneous order with respect to distributional ideals.

Conclusion: reform and innovation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha A. Shave
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Process Approach ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Reform And Innovation

The first half of this chapter examines the implications of these findings for our understandings of several areas of the poor laws: local ideas and policy transfer, national legislation and policy-making. The second half of the conclusion focuses on the influences upon the development of the poor laws. It examines the role of stakeholders and key actors, each with distinct roles in the policy process across both the old and New Poor Law eras. The chapter finishes by discussing more broadly how the policy process approach can be applied to understand reform and innovation in the broader field of social and public policy.

Social Programs, Third-Sector Competition, and Transparency

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Chim Richard Wong
Keyword(s):  
Public Debt ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Income Redistribution ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
The West ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Public Transfers ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich Countries

Why have the welfare states of the rich countries of the West, which transfer on average nearly a quarter of GDP from the rich to the poor, failed to alleviate poverty? And why has inequality widened in recent decades in these countries? The liberals in these countries—intellectuals and politicians—continue to argue for more public transfers. But if income redistribution could solve poverty, should it not have done so by now? The illusion that poverty can be solved through income redistribution is the key reason why so many rich economies have become saddled with public debt: in some countries it approaches 100% and even 200% of GDP.

‘Boomerang effect’: the bottleneck of public policy analysis in Turkey

2018 ◽  
pp. 35-50
Author(s):  
Akif Argun Akdoğan
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Policy Cycle ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Administrative Culture ◽  
Boomerang Effect ◽  
Performance Auditing ◽  
And Performance

This chapter seeks to explain the poor performance of public policy tools in Turkey through strategic planning and performance auditing utilising the “boomerang effect” concept mainly used in communication studies. For this analysis the study follows the steps of the heuristic public policy cycle model. After clarifying the transfer process of strategic planning and performance auditing to the Turkish administrative system, the study focuses on the implementation of these policy tools. Demonstrating the poor performance of these tools with reference to some empirical studies, the chapter discusses four reasons of non-implementation of policy tools, namely the exposure of political power to public scrutiny, Turkish administrative culture, lack of domestic contribution and the leverage power of international and regional organizations.

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