Redistributive public employment

politicians may use "disguised" redistributive policies in order to circumv ent opposition to explicit tax-transfer schemes. First, we present a theore tical model that formalizes this hypothesis. Next, we provide evidence cons istent with the prediction of the model, namely that in U.S. cities, politi cians use public employment as such a redistributive device. We find that c ity employment is significantly higher in cities where income inequality an d ethnic fragmentation are higher. (C) 2000 Academic Press.