IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/eeaeje/250053.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Distributional Implications of personal Income Tax Reforms: The case of Civil Service sector in Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Abu, Girma Moges

Abstract

The principles of horizontal and vertical equity are central in fiscal policy. The distributional implications of a taxation system are derived from how the tax codes incorporate these principles for a given pattern of income distribution. This paper examines the distributional issues and implications of personal income tax reforms in Ethiopia with reference to the civil service sector. The theoretical issues and policies are analyzed in light of the 1994 and 2002 income tax reforms. We argue that whereas the reform measures undertaken so far have addressed some problems in the fiscal system, further measures are needed to improve the capacity of the tax code to promote the principles of equity and to encourage capital accumulation and growth efforts. The built-in structure of the tax system, coupled with conventional approaches in tax policy design and implementation, has contributed towards policy stances that weaken the role that the tax system could play in promoting sustainable economic growth and address problems of chronic poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Abu, Girma Moges, 2005. "The Distributional Implications of personal Income Tax Reforms: The case of Civil Service sector in Ethiopia," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 9(2), pages 130-130, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:eeaeje:250053
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.250053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/250053/files/Abu%20Girma_THE%20DISTRIBUTIONAL%20IMPLICATIONS%20OF%20PERSONAL%20INCOME.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.250053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitra, Tapan & Ok, Efe A, 1996. "Personal Income Taxation and the Principle of Equal Sacrifice Revisited," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(4), pages 925-948, November.
    2. Taye Mengistae, 1998. "Wage rates and job queues: does the public sector overpay in Ethiopia?," CSAE Working Paper Series 1998-20, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    3. Mr. Ian Lienert & Jitendra R. Modi, 1997. "A Decade of Civil Service Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 1997/179, International Monetary Fund.
    4. International Monetary Fund, 1999. "Ethiopia: Recent Economic Developments," IMF Staff Country Reports 1999/098, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Sandra R. Baum, 1987. "On the Measurement of Tax Progressivity: Relative Share Adjustment," Public Finance Review, , vol. 15(2), pages 166-187, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adeola F. Adenikinju & Olugboyega Oyeranti, 1999. "Characteristics and Behaviour of African Factor Markets and Market Institutions and Their Consequences for Economic Growth," CID Working Papers 31A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2011. "Voting over piece-wise linear tax methods," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 29-36, January.
    3. Mitra, Tapan & Ok, Efe A., 1997. "On the Equitability of Progressive Taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 316-334, April.
    4. Stanislaw Maciej Kot, 2019. "Deriving The Parameter Of Inequality Aversion From A Parametric Distribution Of Incomes," GUT FME Working Paper Series A 58, Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdansk University of Technology.
    5. Nora Lustig, 2019. "Measuring the Distributional Impact of Taxation and Public Spending: The Practice of Fiscal Incidence Analysis," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 24, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    6. Fábio Veras Soares, 2004. "Do Informal Workers Queue For Formal Jobs in Brazil ?," Discussion Papers 1021, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
    7. da Costa, Carlos E. & Pereira, Thiago, 2014. "On the efficiency of equal sacrifice income tax schedules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 399-418.
    8. Asma Hyder, 2007. "Wage Differentials, Rate of Return to Education, and Occupational Wage Share in the Labour Market of Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2007:17, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    9. Soumyanetra Munshi, 2011. "On existence of pure strategy equilibrium with endogenous income," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(1), pages 1-37, June.
    10. Pieter Serneels, 2007. "The Nature of Unemployment among Young Men in Urban Ethiopia," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 170-186, February.
    11. Peter J. Lambert & Helen T. Naughton, 2009. "The Equal Absolute Sacrifice Principle Revisited," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 328-349, April.
    12. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Humberto Llavador, 2021. "Elasticity determinants of inequality-reducing income taxation," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(1), pages 163-183, March.
    13. Nath,Shanjukta & Wieser,Christina, 2021. "What Explains Wage Differentials for Urban Wage Earners? : Returns to Education for Ethiopia’s UrbanWage Employed," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9879, The World Bank.
    14. Satya R. Chakravarty & Palash Sarkar, 2022. "Inequality minimising subsidy and taxation," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 10(1), pages 53-67, May.
    15. David Stasavage, 2001. "Electoral Competition and Public Spending on Education: Evidence from African Countries," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2001-17, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Llavador, Humberto, 2018. "Inequality reducing properties of progressive income tax schedules: the case of endogenous income," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    17. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Ok, Efe A., 2007. "Voting over income taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 249-286, May.
    18. Nadeem Ul Haque, 1998. "Issues in the Designing of Public Sector Reform," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 37(4), pages 299-327.
    19. Tymon Słoczyński, 2012. "Zastosowanie zasady równych ofiar do oceny sprawiedliwości taryfy podatku dochodowego od osób fizycznych (PIT) w Polsce," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 10, pages 23-47.
    20. Stephen Devereux & Kay Sharp, 2006. "Trends in poverty and destitution in Wollo, Ethiopia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(4), pages 592-610.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics; Public Economics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:eeaeje:250053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa2ea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.