IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v28y2000i6p511-539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determination of Income Mobility Using Tax Return Data

Author

Listed:
  • Amy Dunbar

    (University of Connecticut)

  • James E. Groff

    (University of Texas at San Antonio)

Abstract

This research addresses the question of whether taxpayers were income mobile during 1979-1990. Following prior research, the authors compare ranks of individuals in the sample distribution of income across years. Extending prior research, the question is asked: Does an individual draw his income from some fixed subset of the distribution of possible incomes, implying a limited income opportunity set, or from the total distribution of incomes, implying an unlimited income opportunity set? Group income distributions within each year are analyzed using stochastic dominance. The authors find limited income mobility over 1979-1990 and that individuals face a limited income opportunity set based on their group membership.

Suggested Citation

  • Amy Dunbar & James E. Groff, 2000. "Determination of Income Mobility Using Tax Return Data," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(6), pages 511-539, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:28:y:2000:i:6:p:511-539
    DOI: 10.1177/109114210002800602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114210002800602
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114210002800602?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. Slemrod,Joel, 1997. "Tax Progressivity and Income Inequality," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521587761.
    2. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1983. "Ranking Income Distributions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(197), pages 3-17, February.
    3. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931.
    4. Dardanoni Valentino, 1993. "Measuring Social Mobility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 372-394, December.
    5. Richard Alm & W. Michael Cox, 1995. "By our own bootstraps: economic opportunity and the dynamics of income distribution," Annual Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, pages 2-24.
    6. John A. Bishop & John P. Formby & W. James Smith, 1993. "International Comparisons of Welfare and Poverty: Dominance Orderings for Ten Countries," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 26(3), pages 707-726, August.
    7. James R. Booth & Richard L. Smith, 1987. "An Examination Of The Small-Firm Effect On The Basis Of Skewness Preference," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 10(1), pages 77-86, March.
    8. Rubin Saposnik, 1981. "Rank-dominance in income distributions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 147-151, January.
    9. Rubin Saposnik, 1983. "On evaluating income distributions: Rank dominance, the Suppes-Sen grading principle of justice, and Pareto optimality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 329-336, January.
    10. Dasgupta, Partha & Sen, Amartya & Starrett, David, 1973. "Notes on the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 180-187, April.
    11. Shorrocks, A F, 1978. "The Measurement of Mobility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 1013-1024, September.
    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. Chiou, Jong-Rong, 1996. "A dominance evaluation of Taiwan's official income distribution statistics, 1976-1992," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 57-75.
    2. Allanson, Paul & Hubbard, Lionel, 1999. "On the Comparative Evaluation of Agricultural Income Distributions in the European Union," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 26(1), pages 1-17, March.
    3. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2013. "Utilitarianism or welfarism: does it make a difference?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 529-551, February.
    4. repec:dun:dpaper:93 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Madden, Paul, 1996. "Suppes-Sen dominance, generalised Lorenz dominance and the welfare economics of competitive equilibrium: Some examples," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 247-262, August.
    6. Satya R. Chakravarty & Nachiketa Chattopadhyay & Nora Lustig & Rodrigo Aranda, 2020. "Measuring Directional Mobility: The Bartholomew and Prais-Bibby Indices Reconsidered," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality, Redistribution and Mobility, volume 28, pages 75-96, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. R. Bénabou & E. Ok, 2000. "Mobility as Progressivity: Ranking Income Processes According to Equality of Opportunity," Princeton Economic Theory Papers 00f1, Economics Department, Princeton University.
    8. John P. Formby & Steven G. Medema & W. James Smith, 1995. "Tax Neutrality and Social Welfare in a Comptutational General Equilibrium Framework," Public Finance Review, , vol. 23(4), pages 419-447, October.
    9. Francesco Andreoli & Claudio Zoli, 2020. "From unidimensional to multidimensional inequality: a review," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(1), pages 5-42, April.
    10. Gravel, Nicolas & Moyes, Patrick, 2012. "Ethically robust comparisons of bidimensional distributions with an ordinal attribute," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(4), pages 1384-1426.
    11. Nicolas Gravel & Patrick Moyes, 2011. "Bidimensional Inequalities with an Ordinal Variable," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: Marc Fleurbaey & Maurice Salles & John A. Weymark (ed.), Social Ethics and Normative Economics, pages 101-127, Springer.
    12. Ravi Kanbur & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2016. "Dynastic inequality, mobility and equality of opportunity," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(4), pages 419-434, December.
    13. N. GRAVEL & Patrick MOYES, 2008. "Bidimensional Inequalities with an Ordinal Variable," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2008-14, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    14. Duclos, J.Y., 1995. "Economic Isolation, Inequality, and the Suits Index of Progressivity," Papers 9510, Laval - Recherche en Politique Economique.
    15. Fabio Maccheroni & Pietro Muliere & Claudio Zoli, 2005. "Inverse stochastic orders and generalized Gini functionals," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 529-559.
    16. Ok, Efe A. & Lambert, Peter J., 1999. "On evaluating social welfare by sequential generalized Lorenz dominance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 45-53, April.
    17. Karsu, Özlem & Morton, Alec, 2015. "Inequity averse optimization in operational research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(2), pages 343-359.
    18. 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.
    19. Jean-Yves Duclos & Paul Makdissi & Quentin Wodon, 2008. "Socially Improving Tax Reforms," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1505-1537, November.
    20. Fatiha Bennia & Nicolas Gravel & Brice Magdalou & Patrick Moyes, 2022. "Is body weight better distributed among men than among women? A robust normative analysis for France, the UK, and the US," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 69-103, January.
    21. Benoît Tarroux, 2012. "Are equalization payments making Canadians better off? A two-dimensional dominance answer," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 19-44, March.

    More about this item

    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:sae:pubfin:v:28:y:2000:i:6:p:511-539. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.