The taxing issue of queues

Working paper

This paper examines the redistributional function of queues. A system in which subsidies and queues are used to allocate goods may appear attractive to policy makers who are concerned about equity since the resource used in queuing (time) is generally allocated more equally than, say, human or physical capital. Thus a subsidy-queue mechanism performs a role similar to that performed by a tax-benefit system. Both mechanisms, however, bring with them efficiency losses, which the paper compares....

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Authors: O'Shaughnessy, T

• Publication status: Published
• Publisher: University of Oxford Publisher's website
• Series: Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
• Publication date: 2000-07-01
• Paper number: 18
• Keywords: redistribution; subsidies; queues; tax-benefit system