Economic disruptions generally create winners and losers. The compensation problem consists of designing a reform of the existing income tax system that offsets the welfare losses of the latter by redistributing the gains of the former. We derive a formula for the compensating tax reform and its impact on the government budget when only distortionary tax instruments are available and wages are determined endogenously in general equilibrium. We apply this result to the compensation of robotization in the United States.
We develop a model of political competition with endogenous turn-out and endogenous platforms. Parties trade off incentivizing their supporters to vote and discouraging the supporters of the competing party from voting. We show that the latter objective is particularly pronounced for a party with an edge in the political race. Thus, an increase in political support for a party may lead to the adoption of policies favoring its opponents so as to asymmetrically demobilize them. We study the implications for the political economy of redistributive taxation. Equilibrium tax policy is typically aligned with the interest of voters who are demobilized.