Raising vs. Leveling in the Social Organization of Welfare

Review of Law and Economics, Forthcoming

GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 10-14

28 Pages Posted: 13 Apr 2010

See all articles by Richard E. Wagner

Richard E. Wagner

George Mason University - Department of Economics; George Mason University - Mercatus Center

Date Written: April 2010

Abstract

This paper contrasts raising and leveling as alternative conceptual frameworks regarding the social organization of welfare. At least since Richard Musgrave’s (1959) tripartite organization of the theory of public finance, most fiscal scholars have treated the redistributive activities of governments as necessarily belonging to the national level of government. More significantly perhaps, that literature has treated the problem of promoting welfare as one of leveling incomes through programs of taxing-and-transferring. In contrast, this paper treats the problem of promoting welfare as one of raising incomes. This alternative formulation leads, in turn, to an alternative orientation toward the relationship between federalism and welfare. In particular, there is good reason to think that genuinely competitive federalism offers a sounder institutional framework for promoting raising than can redistribution through a central government, mostly because the knowledge that is required for a program of raising is distributed and incapable of meaningful summarization through aggregation.

Keywords: redistribution vs. flourishing, federalism vs. decentralization, hierarchy vs. polycentricity, wants vs. activities, social division of knowledge, comparative institutional analysis

JEL Classification: D31, D63, H11, H77, I30

Suggested Citation

Wagner, Richard E., Raising vs. Leveling in the Social Organization of Welfare (April 2010). Review of Law and Economics, Forthcoming, GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 10-14, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1589148

Richard E. Wagner (Contact Author)

George Mason University - Department of Economics ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner/

George Mason University - Mercatus Center ( email )

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Arlington, VA 22201
United States

HOME PAGE: http://ppe.mercatus.org/scholars/richard-wagner

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