Political Activism and the Provision of Dynamic Incentives

Abstract

This paper studies the determination of income taxes in a dynamic setting with human capital accumulation. The goal is to understand the factors that support an outcome without complete redistribution, given a majority of relatively poor agents. In the analysis, the internal dynamics of income are not sufficient to prevent complete redistribution under majority rule without commitment. However, a political influence game limits the support for expropriatory taxation and preserves incentives. In some cases, the outcome of the game corresponds with the optimal allocation under commitment.