IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v24y2005i1p5-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How fair? Changes in federal income taxation and the distribution of income, 1978 to 1998

Author

Listed:
  • James Alm

    (Georgia State University)

  • Fitzroy Lee

    (Office of Research and Analysis, Government of the District of Colombia)

  • Sally Wallace

    (Georgia State University)

Abstract

In this paper, we determine how tax law and income distribution changes have separately contributed to the changes in tax progressivity over time, and also how a specific pre-tax distribution of income affects the equalizing ability of a given tax change. We use information from the Current Population Survey for years that follow immediately after significant tax law changes or after the full enactment of these changes to measure the effect of income taxes on income distribution for selected years over the period 1978 to 1998. We find that, even when account is taken of the induced effect of changes in federal income tax laws on pre-tax income, the individual income tax structure has been less successful in equalizing after-tax income since the 1980s and into the early 1990s. We also find that a given tax law's equalizing effect on the distribution of income is significantly affected by the pre-tax distribution of income. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Suggested Citation

  • James Alm & Fitzroy Lee & Sally Wallace, 2005. "How fair? Changes in federal income taxation and the distribution of income, 1978 to 1998," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 5-22.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:24:y:2005:i:1:p:5-22
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.20067
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/pam.20067
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.20067?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. Suits, Daniel B, 1977. "Measurement of Tax Progressivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 747-752, September.
    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. Nora Lustig, 2019. "Measuring the Distributional Impact of Taxation and Public Spending: The Practice of Fiscal Incidence Analysis," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 24, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    2. Bargain, Olivier & Dolls, Mathias & Immervoll, Herwig & Neumann, Dirk & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2011. "Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1978-2009: A Decomposition Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 5910, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. James Alm, 2017. "Is Economics Useful for Public Policy?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(4), pages 835-854, April.
    4. Bargain, Olivier & Dolls, Mathias & Immervoll, Herwig & Neumann, Dirk & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2013. "Partisan Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1979-2007," IZA Discussion Papers 7190, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Andrew V. Stephenson, 2018. "The Impact of Personal Income Tax Structure on Income Inequality for Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Lithuania, and Poland: A Comparison of Flat and Graduated Income Tax Structures," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 46(4), pages 405-417, December.
    6. Thor O. Thoresen & Zhiyang Jia & Peter J. Lambert, 2016. "Is there More Redistribution Now? A Review of Methods for Evaluating Tax Redistributional Effects," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 72(3), pages 302-333, September.
    7. Bebonchu Atems & Grayden Shand, 2018. "An empirical analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurship and income inequality," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 905-922, December.
    8. Bargain, Olivier & Dolls, Mathias & Immervoll, Herwig & Neumann, Dirk & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2014. "Tax policy and income inequality in the US, 1979-2007," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-001, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Duncan, Denvil, 2014. "Behavioral responses and the distributional effects of the Russian ‘flat’ tax," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 226-240.
    10. Chiarini, Bruno & Ferrara, Maria & Marzano, Elisabetta, 2022. "Tax evasion and financial accelerator: A corporate sector analysis for the US business cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    11. Bruno Chiarini & Maria Ferrara & Elisabetta Marzano, 2018. "Credit Channel and Business Cycle: The Role of Tax Evasion," CESifo Working Paper Series 7169, CESifo.

    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. John B. Loomis, 2013. "Incorporating distributional issues into benefit–cost analysis: why, how, and two empirical examples using non-market valuation," Chapters, in: Scott O. Farrow & Richard Zerbe, Jr. (ed.), Principles and Standards for Benefit–Cost Analysis, chapter 9, pages 294-316, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Frank Crowley & John Eakins & Declan Jordan, 2012. "Participation,Expenditure and Regressivity in the Irish Lottery:Evidence from Irish Household Budget Survey 2004/2005," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(2), pages 199-225.
    3. Nicolas Herault & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2021. "Redistributive effect and the progressivity of taxes and benefits: evidence for the UK, 1977–2018," Working Papers 592, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Jacques Silber, 1994. "Income Distribution, Tax Structure, and the Measurement of Tax Progressivity," Public Finance Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 86-102, January.
    5. Oskar Ragnar Harmon, 1989. "A New View of the Incidence of the Property Tax: the Case of New Jersey," Public Finance Review, , vol. 17(3), pages 323-348, July.
    6. Tim Krieger & Christine Meemann & Stefan Traub, 2022. "Inequality, Life Expectancy, and the Intragenerational Redistribution Puzzle - Some Experimental Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9677, CESifo.
    7. Eliasson, Jonas, 2016. "Is congestion pricing fair? Consumer and citizen perspectives on equity effects," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-15.
    8. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2022. "A synthesis of local and effective tax progressivity measurement," MPRA Paper 115180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Andreas Peichl & Nico Pestel & Sebastian Siegloch, 2013. "Ist Deutschland wirklich so progressiv? Einkommensumverteilung im europäischen Vergleich," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 82(1), pages 111-127.
    10. John Bishop & K. Chow & John Formby & Chih-Chin Ho, 1997. "Did Tax Reform Reduce Actual US Progressivity? Evidence from the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 4(2), pages 177-197, May.
    11. Mary Beal & Mary O. Borg & Harriet Stranahan, 2017. "The Equity Effects of Property Tax Caps: Evidence from Florida," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 6, July.
    12. You-Yi Guo & Jin-Xu Lin & Shih-Mo Lin, 2022. "The Distribution Effects of a Carbon Tax on Urban and Rural Households in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Xavier Labandeira & José M Labeaga & Jordi J Teixidó, 2022. "Major Reforms in Electricity Pricing: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(644), pages 1517-1541.
    14. Lin, Joanne Yuh-Jye & Jenelius, Erik & Cebecauer, Matej & Rubensson, Isak & Chen, Cynthia, 2023. "The equity of public transport crowding exposure," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    15. West, Sarah E., 2004. "Distributional effects of alternative vehicle pollution control policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 735-757, March.
    16. Guo, Shuocheng & Kontou, Eleftheria, 2021. "Disparities and equity issues in electric vehicles rebate allocation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    17. Momi Dahan, 2023. "Social Construction And The Progressivity Of Local Tax Relief," Israel Economic Review, Bank of Israel, vol. 21(1), pages 1-33, March.
    18. Shupeng Zhu & Michael Mac Kinnon & Andrea Carlos-Carlos & Steven J. Davis & Scott Samuelsen, 2022. "Decarbonization will lead to more equitable air quality in California," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    19. Jonas Klos & Tim Krieger & Sven Stöwhase, 2022. "Measuring intra-generational redistribution in PAYG pension schemes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 53-73, January.
    20. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.

    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:wly:jpamgt:v:24:y:2005:i:1:p:5-22. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    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.