The allocation of badly needed goods to low-income consumers: A system of central planning without redistributive taxation

A simple planning model is constructed that is designed to deliver more of certain badly needed goods to poor consumers than they would receive under a competitive system. The model increases the supply of the badly needed goods, while minimizing the cost, in terms of welfare losses, of the increased production to those consumers for whom the goods are relatively unimportant. Simulation examples are used to demonstrate the methodology, which is sufficiently general to be used to represent many different central-planning systems.