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The Impact of Taxes and Transfer Payments on the Distribution of Income: A Parametric Comparison

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  • James McDonald
  • Rachel Hartshorn
  • Samuel Dastrup

Abstract

The Luxembourg Income Study data is used to explore the impact of taxes and transfer payments on the distribution of income across thirteen countries for different years. The five-parameter generalized beta distribution and ten of its special cases are considered as models for the size distribution of income. Maximum likelihood methods are used to estimate the model with corresponding measures of goodness of fit and inequality reported. These results identify the best-fitting two, three, and four- parameter models as well as describe the inter-temporal patterns of inequality corresponding to earnings, total income, and disposable income. A general pattern of increasing inequality is observed for almost all countries considered along with significantly different distributional impacts of taxes and transfer payments across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • James McDonald & Rachel Hartshorn & Samuel Dastrup, 2006. "The Impact of Taxes and Transfer Payments on the Distribution of Income: A Parametric Comparison," LIS Working papers 401, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:401
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    4. Markus Jäntti & Stephen Jenkins, 2010. "The impact of macroeconomic conditions on income inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 221-240, June.
    5. Sung Y. Park & Anil K. Bera, 2018. "Information theoretic approaches to income density estimation with an application to the U.S. income data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(4), pages 461-486, December.
    6. Walter, Paul & Weimer, Katja, 2018. "Estimating poverty and inequality indicators using interval censored income data from the German microcensus," Discussion Papers 2018/10, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    7. Vladimir Hlasny, 2021. "Parametric representation of the top of income distributions: Options, historical evidence, and model selection," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1217-1256, September.
    8. Michał Brzeziński, 2013. "Parametric Modelling of Income Distribution in Central and Eastern Europe," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 5(3), pages 207-230, September.
    9. Enrico Fabrizi & Maria Rosaria Ferrante & Carlo Trivisano, 2020. "A functional approach to small area estimation of the relative median poverty gap," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(3), pages 1273-1291, June.
    10. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & José Montalvo & Rosemarie Nagel & Albert Satorra, 2010. "A finite mixture analysis of beauty-contest data using generalized beta distributions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(4), pages 461-475, December.
    11. Brzezinski, Michal, 2013. "Asymptotic and bootstrap inference for top income shares," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 10-13.
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