Justitia Distributiva Durch Umverteilung?

The authors empirically and extensively analyse the budget incidence for the FRG (1969). They pursue four aims: Based on a realistic (theoretical) concept, also showing the limitations of the analysis they determine (1) the overall redistribu‐tional effects of the budget to be 20.2|X%, measured by the difference between the Gini‐coefficients under realistic assumptions, (2) the process of redistribution in the form of a sequence analysis, which proves that direct and indirect revenue compensate each other and that only government expenditure has an overall effect on redistribution, (3) extreme values (spans) of the budget incidence with the help of a sensitivity analysis of alternative hypotheses on the shifting of taxation, and these differ only by |Mp 3‐4|X% compared with a middle variant, (4) modifications by the integration of the Aaron‐McGuire concept concerning pure public goods, which correspondingly widen the span depending on alternative marginal rates of substitution between public and private goods. The open and realistic concept enables the inclusion of other theoretical procedures and methods and the critical comparison of the results. Political conclusions are not drawn, but some of the limitations of redistribution are revealed.