Pareto-improving structural reforms

Journal article: Economists recommend to partly redistribute gains to losers from a structural reform, which in many cases may be required for making the reform politically viable. However, taxation is distortionary. Then, it is unclear that compensatory transfers can support a Pareto-improving reform. This paper provides sufficient conditions for this to occur, despite tax distortions. In a setting where preferences are isoelastic, deregulation is implementable in a Pareto-improving way through compensatory lump-sum transfers, despite that these are financed by distortionary taxes. In a more general setting, there always exist Pareto-improving reforms but they may involve tightening regulation for some goods. I show that if demand cross-price elasticities are not be too large and that the reform is not too unbalanced, deregulation is again implementable in a Pareto-improving way. Finally, I consider counter-examples where some people earn rents associated with informational or institutional frictions, or where non homothetic preferences may make the schemes considered here not viable.

Author(s)

Gilles Saint-Paul

Journal
  • Journal of Economic Theory
Date of publication
  • 2021
Keywords JEL
E64 H21 P11
Keywords
  • Structural reform
  • Deregulation
  • Price controls
  • Pareto optimality
  • Taxation
  • Compensatory transfers
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 194