IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/443.html

The Impact of Taxes, Transfers, and Subsidies on Inequality and Poverty in Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • Jon Jellema
  • Nora Lustig
  • Astrid Haas
  • Sebastian Wolf

Abstract

This paper uses the 2012/13 Uganda National Household Survey to analyze the redistributive effectiveness and impact on poverty and inequality of Uganda’s revenue collection instruments and social spending programs. Fiscal policy – including many of its constituent tax and spending elements – is inequality-reducing in Uganda, but the reduction of inequality due to fiscal policy in Uganda is lower than other countries with similar levels of initial inequality, a result tied to low levels of spending in Uganda generally. The impact of fiscal policy on poverty is negligible, while the combination of very sparse coverage of direct transfer programs and nearly complete coverage of indirect tax instruments means that many poor households are net payers into, rather than net recipients from, the fiscal system. As Uganda looks ahead to increased revenues from taxation and concurrent investments in productive infrastructure, it should take care to protect the poorest households from further impoverishment from the fiscal system.

Suggested Citation

  • Jon Jellema & Nora Lustig & Astrid Haas & Sebastian Wolf, 2016. "The Impact of Taxes, Transfers, and Subsidies on Inequality and Poverty in Uganda," Working Papers 443, Center for Global Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cgdev.org/publication/taxes-transfers-subsidies-uganda?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/taxes-transfers-subsidies-uganda.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jose Cuesta & Jon Jellema & Lucia Ferrone, 0. "Fiscal Policy, Multidimensional Poverty, and Equity in Uganda: A Child-Lens Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 0, pages 1-32.
    2. Jose Cuesta & Jon Jellema & Lucia Ferrone, 2022. "Correction to: Fiscal Policy, Multidimensional Poverty, and Equity in Uganda: A Child-Lens Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(1), pages 571-572, February.
    3. Susan Namirembe Kavuma & Christine Byaruhanga & Nicholas Musoke & Patrick Loke & Michael Noble & Gemma Wright, 2020. "An analysis of the distributional impact of excise duty in Uganda using a tax-benefit microsimulation model," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-70, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Yaru, Mohammed Aminu & Adisa-Ohiaka, Ubaydah, 2022. "Indirect Taxation and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Empirical Evidence from Panel Data Analysis," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 10(5), December.
    5. Jose Cuesta & Jon Jellema & Yekaterina Chzhen & Lucia Ferrone & UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, 2018. "Commitment to Equity for Children, CEQ4C: Fiscal Policy, Multidimensional Poverty, and Equity in Uganda," Papers inwopa945, Innocenti Working Papers.
    6. Haydeeliz Carrasco Nunez & Hamidou Jawara & Moritz Meyer, 2022. "The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty in The Gambia," World Bank Publications - Reports 37187, The World Bank Group.
    7. Nora Lustig, 2017. "Fiscal Policy, Income Redistribution and Poverty Reduction in Low and Middle Income Countries," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 1354, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    8. Haydeeliz Carrasco & Hamidou Jawara & Moritz Meyer, 2022. "The Effects Of Fiscal Policy On Inequality And Poverty In The Gambia," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 117, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    9. Damiano Kulundu Manda & Reuben Mutegi & Samuel Kipruto & Moses Muriithi & Paul Samoei & Martine Oleche & Germano Mwabu & Stephen D. Younger & Anda David, 2020. "Fiscal Incidence, Inequality and Poverty in Kenya: A CEQ Assessment," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 101, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    10. Markina Oksana, 2022. "Taxation, Inequality, and Poverty: Evidence from Ukraine," Central European Economic Journal, Paradigm, vol. 9(56), pages 1-18, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    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:cgd:wpaper:443. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Publications Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cgdevus.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.