IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tul/ceqwps/86.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Budget Neutral Income Floors Fiscally Viable in Sub-saharan Africa?

Author

Listed:
  • Nora Lustig

    (Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Department of Economics, Tulane University, Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQI))

  • Jon Jellema

    (CEQ Institute)

  • Valentina Martinez Pabon

Abstract

Using microsimulations, we assess whether budget neutral universal income floors are fiscally viable in twelve SSA countries. We consider three universal basic income (UBI) scenarios of decreasing levels of generosity: poverty line, average poverty gap, and current spending on transfers and subsidies per person (spending neutral). The viability of the policies is assessed by comparing the results on poverty and average tax rates obtained from the simulated scenarios with those in the current system (baseline). We find that poverty line and poverty gap UBI programs would not be viable. Spending neutral UBI programs could potentially be viable in Botswana, Ghana and Zambia. If resources are targeted to the poor, a poverty line scenario is viable in Botswana, Ghana, Namibia, and South Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Nora Lustig & Jon Jellema & Valentina Martinez Pabon, 2021. "Are Budget Neutral Income Floors Fiscally Viable in Sub-saharan Africa?," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 86, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tul:ceqwps:86
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.tulane.edu/RePEc/ceq/ceq86.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2021
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Piketty & Li Yang & Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Capital Accumulation, Private Property, and Rising Inequality in China, 1978–2015," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2469-2496, July.
    2. Filip Novokmet & Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "From Soviets to oligarchs: inequality and property in Russia 1905-2016," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(2), pages 189-223, June.
    3. Brown, Caitlin & Ravallion, Martin & van de Walle, Dominique, 2018. "A poor means test? Econometric targeting in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 109-124.
    4. Stephen P. Jenkins, 2017. "Pareto Models, Top Incomes and Recent Trends in UK Income Inequality," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 261-289, April.
    5. Thomas Piketty & Nancy Qian, 2009. "Income Inequality and Progressive Income Taxation in China and India, 1986-2015," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 53-63, April.
    6. Mr. Robert Gillingham & David Locke Newhouse & Mr. David Coady & Mr. Kangni R Kpodar & Moataz El-Said & Mr. Paulo A Medas, 2006. "The Magnitude and Distribution of Fuel Subsidies: Evidence from Bolivia, Ghana, Jordan, Mali, and Sri Lanka," IMF Working Papers 2006/247, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Moore, Mick & Prichard, Wilson & Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge, 2018. "Taxing Africa: Coercion, Reform and Development," Working Papers 13997, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.
    8. Nora Lustig, 2017. "Fiscal Policy, Income Redistribution and Poverty Reduction in Low and Middle Income Countries," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 54, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    9. Youssef Benzarti & Dorian Carloni & Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Kosonen, 2020. "What Goes Up May Not Come Down: Asymmetric Incidence of Value-Added Taxes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(12), pages 4438-4474.
    10. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    11. Beegle, Kathleen & De Weerdt, Joachim & Friedman, Jed & Gibson, John, 2012. "Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys: Experimental results from Tanzania," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 3-18.
    12. Nora Lustig & Jon Jellema & Valentina Martinez Pabon, 2019. "Leaving No One Behind: Can Tax-Funded Transfer Programs Provide Income Floors in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 85, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    13. Maya GOLDMAN & Ingrid WOOLARD & Jon JELLEMA, 2020. "The Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Poverty and Income Distribution in South Africa 2014/2015," Working Paper 148aae17-521b-428b-85de-b, Agence française de développement.
    14. Dean Jolliffe & Espen Beer Prydz, 2016. "Estimating international poverty lines from comparable national thresholds," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(2), pages 185-198, June.
    15. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597, December.
    16. Kathleen Beegle & Luc Christiaensen & Andrew Dabalen & Isis Gaddis, 2016. "Poverty in a Rising Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 22575, December.
    17. Carbonnier, Clement, 2007. "Who pays sales taxes? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1987-1999," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 1219-1229, June.
    18. De La Fuente,Alejandro & Rosales,Manuel & Jellema,Jon Robbert, 2017. "The impact of fiscal policy on inequality and poverty in Zambia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8246, The World Bank.
    19. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    20. Mr. David Coady & Valentina Flamini & Louis Sears, 2015. "The Unequal Benefits of Fuel Subsidies Revisited: Evidence for Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2015/250, International Monetary Fund.
    21. Moore, Mick & Prichard, Wilson & Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge, 2018. "Taxing Africa," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9781783604548, Febrero.
    22. Namibia Statistics Agency & World Bank, 2017. "Does Fiscal Policy Benefit the Poor and Reduce Inequality in Namibia?," World Bank Publications - Reports 27538, The World Bank Group.
    23. World Bank, 2017. "Comoros Poverty Assessment," World Bank Publications - Reports 29870, The World Bank Group.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Hernandez, Carlos Ospino & Rigolini, Jamele & Coll-Black, Sarah & Oviedo, Ana Maria, 2023. "Protecting Who? Optimal Social Protection Responses to Shocks with Limited Information," IZA Policy Papers 205, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Nora Lustig & Valentina Martinez Pabon, 2022. "Universal Basic Income, Taxes, and the Poor," Working Papers 2205, Tulane University, Department of Economics.

    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. Nora Lustig & Jon Jellema & Valentina Martinez Pabon, 2019. "Leaving No One Behind: Can Tax-Funded Transfer Programs Provide Income Floors in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 85, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    2. Ali Enami & Ugo Gentilini & Patricio Larroulet & Nora Lustig & Emma Monsalve & Siyu Quan & Jamele Rigolini, 2023. "Universal Basic Income Programs: How Much Would Taxes Need to Rise? Evidence for Brazil, Chile, India, Russia, and South Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(9), pages 1443-1463, September.
    3. Nora Lustig, 2018. "Measuring the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth: State of Play and Measurement Challenges," Working Papers 1801, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    4. Thomas Blanchet & Juliette Fournier & Thomas Piketty, 2022. "Generalized Pareto Curves: Theory and Applications," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 263-288, March.
    5. Thomas Blanchet & Ignacio Flores & Marc Morgan, 2022. "The weight of the rich: improving surveys using tax data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 119-150, March.
    6. Saez, Emmanuel & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2018. "A simpler theory of optimal capital taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 120-142.
    7. Dang,Hai-Anh H. & Kilic,Talip & Carletto,Calogero & Abanokova,Kseniya, 2021. "Poverty Imputation in Contexts without Consumption Data : A Revisit with Further Refinements," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9838, The World Bank.
    8. Spencer Bastani & Sebastian Koehne, 2022. "How Should Consumption Be Taxed?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10038, CESifo.
    9. Branko Milanovic, 2022. "After the Financial Crisis: The Evolution of the Global Income Distribution Between 2008 and 2013," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 43-73, March.
    10. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Optimal Labor Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 18521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Assouad, Lydia, 2023. "Rethinking the Lebanese economic miracle: The extreme concentration of income and wealth in Lebanon, 2005–2014," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    12. Nora Lustig, 2020. "The ``missing rich'' in household surveys: causes and correction approaches," Working Papers 520, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    13. Thomas Piketty & Li Yang, 2022. "Income and Wealth Inequality in Hong Kong, 1981-2020: The Rise of Pluto-Communism?," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-03828873, HAL.
    14. Gaurav Datt & Ranjan Ray & Christopher Teh, 2022. "Progressivity and redistributive effects of income taxes: evidence from India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 141-178, July.
    15. Qian, Nancy & Liu, Yu & Wen, Jaya & Fan, Haichao, 2018. "The Dynamic Effects of Computerized VAT Invoices on Chinese Manufacturing Firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 12786, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Brzezinski, Michal & Myck, Michał & Najsztub, Mateusz, 2022. "Sharing the gains of transition: Evaluating changes in income inequality and redistribution in Poland using combined survey and tax return data," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    17. Haichao Fan & Yu Liu & Nancy Qian & Jaya Wen, 2018. "Computerizing VAT Invoices in China," NBER Working Papers 24414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Brzeziński, Michał & Myck, Michal & Najsztub, Mateusz, 2019. "Reevaluating Distributional Consequences of the Transition to Market Economy in Poland: New Results from Combined Household Survey and Tax Return Data," IZA Discussion Papers 12734, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Thomas Piketty & Li Yang, 2022. "Income and Wealth Inequality in Hong Kong, 1981-2020: The Rise of Pluto-Communism?," PSE Working Papers halshs-03828873, HAL.
    20. Nora Lustig, 2019. "The “Missing Rich” in Household Surveys: Causes and Correction Approaches," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 75, Tulane University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    universal basic incomes; fiscal policy; fiscal incidence; poverty; fiscal impoverishment; taxes; sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tul:ceqwps:86. 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: Nora Lustig (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detulus.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.