IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2018-246.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Personal Income Tax Progressivity: Trends and Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Claudia Gerber
  • Mr. Alexander D Klemm
  • Ms. Li Liu
  • Mr. Victor Mylonas

Abstract

This paper discusses how the structure of the tax system affects its progressivity. It suggests a measure of progressive capacity of tax systems, based on the Kakwani index, but independent of pre-tax income distributions. Using this and other progressivity measures, the paper (i) documents a decline in progressivity over the last decades and (ii) examines the relationship between progressivity and economic growth. Regressions do not reveal a significant impact of progressivity on growth, suggesting that efficiency costs of progressivity may be small—at least for degrees of progressivity observed in the sample.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Gerber & Mr. Alexander D Klemm & Ms. Li Liu & Mr. Victor Mylonas, 2018. "Personal Income Tax Progressivity: Trends and Implications," IMF Working Papers 2018/246, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2018/246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=46332
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annette Alstadsæter & Niels Johannesen & Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Tax Evasion and Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2073-2103, June.
    2. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2006. "What matters for financial development? Capital controls, institutions, and interactions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 163-192, October.
    3. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2014. "Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 230-271, February.
    4. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    5. Peter, Klara Sabirianova & Buttrick, Steve & Duncan, Denvil, 2010. "Global Reform of Personal Income Taxation, 1981–2005: Evidence From 189 Countries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(3), pages 447-478, September.
    6. R. A. Musgrave & Tun Thin, 1948. "Income Tax Progression, 1929-48," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(6), pages 498-498.
    7. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    8. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    9. Kakwani, Nanok C, 1977. "Measurement of Tax Progressivity: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 87(345), pages 71-80, March.
    10. Padovano, Fabio & Galli, Emma, 2002. "Comparing the growth effects of marginal vs. average tax rates and progressivity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 529-544, September.
    11. Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2014. "Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2014/002, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Emilio Albi & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), 2011. "The Elgar Guide to Tax Systems," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14436.
    13. Isabelle Joumard & Mauro Pisu & Debbie Bloch, 2012. "Tackling income inequality: The role of taxes and transfers," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2012(1), pages 37-70.
    14. Jonathan David Ostry & Andrew Berg & Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2014. "Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 14/02, International Monetary Fund.
    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. 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.
    2. Salvador Barrios, 2020. "Taxation and growth: Why does it matter and how can it be analysed?," Society and Economy, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 42(4), pages 366-384, December.
    3. Massimo Baldini & Leonzio Rizzo, 2021. "Flat Tax: European Experiences and the Italian Proposals," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 238(3), pages 137-162, September.
    4. Massimo Baldini, 2021. "Redistribution and progressivity of the Italian personal income tax, 40 years later," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 345-366, June.
    5. Binder, Carola, 2019. "Inequality and the inflation tax," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Ostry, Jonathan D. & Espinoza, Raphael & Zhang, Xiaoxiao, 2019. "Globalization, Redistribution, and the Size of Government," CEPR Discussion Papers 14137, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. Suresh Babu, M. & Bhaskaran, Vandana & Venkatesh, Manasa, 2016. "Does inequality hamper long run growth? Evidence from Emerging Economies," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 99-113.
    2. Stefan Bach, 2014. ""Reichensteuer"-Diskussion: Hintergrund und Perspektiven," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 16, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Sanz Labrador, Ismael & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2013. "Política fiscal y crecimiento económico: consideraciones microeconómicas y relaciones macroeconómicas," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 5367, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    4. Jorge Martínez-Vázquez & Violeta Vulovic & Blanca Moreno Dodson, 2012. "The Impact of Tax and Expenditure Policies on Income Distribution: Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 95-130, March.
    5. Victor Amoureux & Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour & Thomas Breda & Laurent Caussat & Janet C Gornick Vi & Bruno Palier, 2019. "L'impact redistributif des modèles socio-fiscaux de protection sociale : analyse comparée internationale 1," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03526560, HAL.
    6. Victor Amoureux & Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour & Thomas Breda & Laurent Caussat & Janet C Gornick Vi & Bruno Palier, 2019. "L'impact redistributif des modèles socio-fiscaux de protection sociale : analyse comparée internationale 1," Working Papers hal-03526560, HAL.
    7. Ribeiro, Rafael S.M. & McCombie, John S.L. & Lima, Gilberto Tadeu, 2020. "Does real exchange rate undervaluation really promote economic growth?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 408-417.
    8. Jochen Hartwig, 2018. "Wachstumsfolgen von Einkommensungleichheit – Theorie, empirische Evidenz und Politikempfehlungen," Chemnitz Economic Papers 020, Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of Technology.
    9. Jonathan D. Ostry & Andrew Berg & Siddharth Kothari, 2021. "Growth‐equity trade‐offs in structural reforms," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(2), pages 209-237, May.
    10. Philipp Doerrenberg & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "The impact of redistributive policies on inequality in OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(17), pages 2066-2086, June.
    11. Gravina, Antonio Francesco & Lanzafame, Matteo, 2021. "Finance, globalisation, technology and inequality: Do nonlinearities matter?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 96-110.
    12. Victor Amoureux & Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour, 2019. "L'impact redistributif des modèles socio-fiscaux de protection sociale : analyse comparée internationale," Working Papers hal-03471417, HAL.
    13. Alexander Krenek & Margit Schratzenstaller, 2018. "A European Net Wealth Tax," WIFO Working Papers 561, WIFO.
    14. Andrew Berg & Jonathan D. Ostry & Charalambos G. Tsangarides & Yorbol Yakhshilikov, 2018. "Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 259-305, September.
    15. Victor Amoureux & Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour & Thomas Breda & Laurent Caussat & Janet C Gornick Vi & Bruno Palier, 2019. "L'impact redistributif des modèles socio-fiscaux de protection sociale : analyse comparée internationale 1," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03526560, HAL.
    16. Victor Amoureux & Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour, 2019. "L'impact redistributif des modèles socio-fiscaux de protection sociale : analyse comparée internationale," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03471417, HAL.
    17. Denvil Duncan & Klara Sabirianova Peter, 2016. "Unequal inequalities: Do progressive taxes reduce income inequality?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(4), pages 762-783, August.
    18. Rubolino, Enrico, 2023. "Does weak enforcement deter tax progressivity?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    19. Victor Amoureux & Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour, 2019. "L'impact redistributif des modèles socio-fiscaux de protection sociale : analyse comparée internationale," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03471417, HAL.
    20. Zare , Roohollah, 2019. "Globalization and Income Inequality: Does the Level of Financial Development Matter?," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 14(2), pages 159-175, April.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2018/246. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.