The authors are grateful to Avner Ben-Ner, Jacques Defourny, Saul Estrin, Felix FitzRoy, Barbara Lee, Bentley MacLeod, Egon Neuberger, Jeffrey Pliskin, Stephen C. Smith, and three anonymous referees for comments on various drafts of this paper. Jones acknowledges with gratitude thefinancial assistance of the National Science Foundation (Grant # 9010591). Of course, all remaining errors and any omissions are entirely the responsibility of the authors.

The fall of Communism, the reassessment of Nordic social democracy, belt-tightening in other advanced welfare states, and the worldwide privatization wave have led many to conclude that egalitarianism is a merely utopian ideal, the possibility of whose realization is laid to rest by the failure of a series of twentieth-century social experiments. We survey the evidence, both empirical and theoretical, and conclude that obituaries are premature. Key theoretical errors in the design of egalitarian experiments, and in some critiques of pro-egalitarian policies, concern the role of information asymmetries, and we argue that their proper understanding re-opens possibilities for increasing equality without unacceptable sacrifices in efficiency.