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The distributional impact of public services in

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The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of including the value of public health care, longterm care, education and childcare on estimates of income inequality and financial poverty in 23 European countries. The valuation of public services and the identification of target groups rely on group-specific accounting data for each of the 23 countries. To account for the fact that the receipt of public services like education and care for the elderly is associated with particular needs, we introduce a theory-based common equivalence scale for European countries, termed the needsadjusted EU scale (or NA scale). Even though the ranking of countries by estimates of overall inequality and poverty proves to be only slightly affected by the choice between the conventional EU scale and the NA scale, poverty estimates by household types are shown to be significantly affected by the choice of equivalence scale.

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  • Rolf Aaberge & Audun Langørgen & Petter Lindgren, 2013. "The distributional impact of public services in," Discussion Papers 746, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssb:dispap:746
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    Cited by:

    1. Massimo Baldini & Vito Peragine & Luca Silvestri, 2017. "Quality of government and subjective poverty in Europe," Department of Economics 0107, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    2. Francesco Figari & Alari Paulus, 2015. "The Distributional Effects of Taxes and Transfers Under Alternative Income Concepts," Public Finance Review, , vol. 43(3), pages 347-372, May.
    3. Caterina Astarita & Salvador Barrios & Francesca D'Auria & Anamaria Maftei & Philipp Mohl & Matteo Salto & Marie-Luise Schmitz & Alberto Tumino & Edouard Turkisch, 2018. "Impact of fiscal policy on income distribution," Report on Public Finances in EMU, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission, pages 71-131, January.
    4. Alessandra Michelangeli & Eugenio Peluso, 2016. "Cities and Inequality," REGION, European Regional Science Association, vol. 3, pages 47-60.
    5. Brian Nolan, 2020. "The Median Versus Inequality-Adjusted GNI as Core Indicator of ‘Ordinary’ Household Living Standards in Rich Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 569-585, July.
    6. Alois Guger & Silvia Rocha-Akis, 2016. "Umverteilung durch den Staat in Österreich," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 89(5), pages 329-345, May.
    7. Tess Penne & Ilse Cornelis & Bérénice Storms, 2019. "Reducing out-of-pocket costs to improve the adequacy of minimum income protection? Reference budgets as an EU policy indicator: The Belgian case," Working Papers 1906, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    8. Francesco Andreoli & Giorgia Casalone & Daniela Sonedda, 2015. "An empirical assessment of households sorting into private schooling under public education provision," Working Papers 356, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    9. Massimo Baldini & Vito Peragine & Luca Silvestri, 2018. "Quality of Government and Subjective Poverty in Europe," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 64(3), pages 371-395.
    10. Figari, Francesco & Paulus, Alari, 2013. "The distributional effects of taxes and transfers under alternative income concepts: the importance of three ‘I’s," EUROMOD Working Papers EM15/13, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Bonin, Holger & Camarero Garcia, Sebastian & Lay, Max & Liu, Vivien & Neisser, Carina & Ody, Margard & Riedel, Lukas & Stichnoth, Holger & Ungerer, Martin & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2018. "Machbarkeitsstudie und Ableitung von Forschungsfragen zu Bedeutung, Inanspruchnahme und Verteilungswirkungen von gesellschaftlich notwendigen Dienstleistungen. Endbericht," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 184658.
    12. Lindgren, Petter Y. & Presterud, Ane Ofstad, 2021. "Expanding the Norwegian Armed Forces in the Time of Corona: Benefit-Cost Analysis in the Context of High Unemployment Rate," MPRA Paper 106405, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Aaberge, Rolf & Eika, Lasse & Langørgen, Audun & Mogstad, Magne, 2019. "Local governments, in-kind transfers, and economic inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    14. Francesco Andreoli & Giorgia Casalone & Daniela Sonedda, 2018. "Public education provision, private schooling and income redistribution," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(4), pages 553-582, December.
    15. Julio López Laborda & Carmen Marín González & Jorge Onrubia, 2020. "Observatorio sobre el reparto de los impuestos y las prestaciones entre los hogares españoles. Quinto informe – Sanidad y educación, 2013 - 2017," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2020-28, FEDEA.
    16. Geranda Notten & Anne-Catherine Guio, 2016. "The impact of social transfers on income poverty and material deprivation," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/17, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    17. Gaentzsch, Anja, 2018. "The distributional impact of social spending in Peru," Discussion Papers 2018/7, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    18. Sabine Israel, 2016. "More than Cash: Societal Influences on the Risk of Material Deprivation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 619-637, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income distribution; Poverty; Public services; In-kind transfers; Needs adjustment; Equivalence scales;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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