Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Social Spending Generosity and Income Inequality: A Dynamic Panel Approach

Contents:

Author Info

  • Judith Niehues
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    This paper explores whether more generous social spending polices in fact lead to less income inequality, or if redistributive outcomes are offset by behavioral disincentive effects. To account for the inherent endogeneity of social policies with regard to inequality levels, I apply the System GMM estimator and use the presumably random incidence of certain diseases as instruments for social spending levels. The regression results suggest that more social spending effectively reduces inequality levels. The result is robust with respect to the instrument count and different data restrictions. Looking at the structure of benefits, particularly unemployment benefits and public pensions are responsible for the inequality reducing impact. More targeted benefits, however, do not significantly reduce income inequality. Rather, their positive effect on pre-government income inequality hints at substantial disinctive effects.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.364021.de/diw_sp0336.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) in its series SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research with number 336.

    as in new window
    Length: 30 p.
    Date of creation: 2010
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp336

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: Mohrenstraße 58, D-10117 Berlin
    Phone: xx49-30-89789-283
    Fax: xx49-30-89789-109
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.diw.de/en/soep
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords: Social Benefits; Redistribution; Income Inequality; System GMM;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. Hans-Werner Sinn, 1996. "A Theory of the Welfare State," NBER Working Papers 4856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Galor, Oded & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1996. "Income Distribution and Growth: The Kuznets Hypothesis Revisited," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(250), pages S103-17, Suppl..
    3. Sutherland, Holly, 2001. "EUROMOD: an integrated European benefit-tax model: final report," EUROMOD Working Papers EM9/01, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Immervoll, Herwig & Levy, Horacio & Lietz, Christine & Mantovani, D. & O'Donoghue, Cathal & Sutherland, Holly & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2005. "Household incomes and redistribution in the European Union: quantifying the equalising properties of taxes and benefits," EUROMOD Working Papers EM9/05, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    6. Danziger, Sheldon & Haveman, Robert & Plotnick, Robert, 1981. "How Income Transfer Programs Affect Work, Savings, and the Income Distribution: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 975-1028, September.
    7. Georg R. G. Clarke & Lixin Colin Xu & Heng-fu Zou, 2006. "Finance and Income Inequality: What Do the Data Tell Us?," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 578-596, January.
    8. Richard Blundell & Costas Meghir & Sarah Smith, 2002. "Pension Incentives and the Pattern of Early Retirement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages C153-C170, March.
    9. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2005. "Designing Optimal Taxes With a Microeconometric Model of Household Labour Supply," Public Economics 0510013, EconWPA.
    10. Ales Bulir & Anne Marie Gulde, 1995. "Inflation and Income Distribution - Further Evidence on Empirical Links," IMF Working Papers 95/86, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Hongyi Li & Danyang Xie & Heng-Fu Zou, 2000. "Dynamics of income distribution," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(4), pages 937-961, November.
    12. Richard Blundell & Steve Bond, 1995. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," IFS Working Papers W95/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Clemens Fuest & Judith Niehues & Andreas Peichl, 2010. "The Redistributive Effects of Tax Benefit Systems in the Enlarged EU," Public Finance Review, , vol. 38(4), pages 473-500, July.
    14. Axel Dreher & Noel Gaston, 2008. "Has Globalization Increased Inequality?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 516-536, 08.
    15. Michael Förster & Peter Whiteford, 2009. "How much Redistribution do Welfare States Achieve? The Role of Cash Transfers and Household Taxes," CESifo DICE Report, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 7(3), pages 34-41, October.
    16. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    17. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García-Peñalosa, 2008. "Labour market institutions and income inequality," Economic Policy, CEPR & CES & MSH, vol. 23, pages 601-649, October.
    18. Pestieau, Pierre, 2005. "The Welfare State in the European Union: Economic and Social Perspectives," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199261024, July.
    19. Atkinson, Anthony B & Micklewright, John, 1991. "Unemployment Compensation and Labor Market Transitions: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1679-1727, December.
    20. Blundell, Richard, 2000. "Work Incentives and 'In-Work' Benefit Reforms: A Review," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 27-44, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as in new window

    Cited by:
    1. Philipp Doerrenberg & Andreas Peichl, 2012. "The Impact of Redistributive Policies on Inequality in OECD Countries," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 03-05, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
    1. SOEP based publications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp336

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Bibliothek).

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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