IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ihs/ihsesp/184.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Household Incomes and Redistribution in the European Union: Quantifying the Equalising Properties of Taxes and Benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Immervoll, Herwig

    (University of Cambridge, OECD, European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, Vienna and IZA, Bonn)

  • Levy, Horacio

    (University of Essex)

  • Lietz, Christine

    (Department of Economics and Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria)

  • Mantovani, Daniela

    (University of Cambridge and Prometeia, Bologna)

  • O'Donoghue, Cathal

    (National University of Ireland, Galway, IZA, Bonn and CHILD)

  • Sutherland, Holly

    (University of Essex and DIW Berlin)

  • Verbist, Gerlinde

    (University of Antwerp)

Abstract

The systems of direct taxes and cash benefits in the Member States of the European Union vary considerably in size and structure. We explore their direct impacts on cross-sectional income inequality (termed "redistributive effect" for the purpose of this paper) using EUROMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union. This relies on harmonised household micro-data representative of each national population together with simulations of entitlements to cash benefits and liabilities for taxes and social contributions. It allows us to draw a more comprehensive – and comparable – picture of the combined effects of transfers and taxes than is usually possible. We decompose the redistributive effect of taxbenefit systems to assess and compare the effectiveness of individual policies at reducing income disparities. We derive results for the 15 "old" members of the European Union and present them for each country separately as well as for the EU-15 as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • Immervoll, Herwig & Levy, Horacio & Lietz, Christine & Mantovani, Daniela & O'Donoghue, Cathal & Sutherland, Holly & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2006. "Household Incomes and Redistribution in the European Union: Quantifying the Equalising Properties of Taxes and Benefits," Economics Series 184, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:184
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/1688
    File Function: First version, 2006
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-Marc Burniaux & Thai-Thanh Dang & Douglas Fore & Michael Förster & Marco Mira d'Ercole & Howard Oxley, 1998. "Income Distribution and Poverty in Selected OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 189, OECD Publishing.
    2. Christopher Heady & Theodore Mitrakos & Panos Tsakloglou, 2001. "The distributional impact of social transfers in the European Union: evidence from the ECHP," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 547-565., December.
    3. Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy & van der Burg, Hattem & Calonge, Samuel & Christiansen, Terkel & Citoni, Guido & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Gerfin, Michael & Gross, Lorna & Hakinnen, Unto, 1999. "Redistributive effect, progressivity and differential tax treatment: Personal income taxes in twelve OECD countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 73-98, April.
    4. Verbist, Gerlinde, 2004. "Redistributive effect and progressivity of taxes: an international comparison across the EU using EUROMOD," EUROMOD Working Papers EM5/04, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Whitehouse, Edward, 2000. "How poor are the old? a survey of evidence from 44 countries," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 23141, The World Bank.
    6. Andrzej Grodner & Timothy Smeeding, 2000. "Changing Income Inequality in OECD Countries: Updated Results from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)," LIS Working papers 252, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Boadway, Robin & Keen, Michael, 2000. "Redistribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 677-789, Elsevier.
    8. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1993. "Progressivity, Redistribution, and Equity, with Application to the British Tax and Benefit System," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 48(3), pages 350-365.
    9. O'Donoghue, Cathal & Sutherland, Holly & Immervoll, Herwig, 1999. "An introduction to EUROMOD," EUROMOD Working Papers EM0/99, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    10. Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A., 1980. "A single-parameter generalization of the Gini indices of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 67-86, February.
    11. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1983. "On an Extension of the Gini Inequality Index," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 24(3), pages 617-628, October.
    12. Sutherland, Holly & Mantovani, Daniela, 2003. "Social indicators and other income statistics using the EUROMOD baseline: a comparison with Eurostat and National Statistics," EUROMOD Working Papers EM1/03, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    13. Berglas, Eitan, 1971. "Income Tax and the Distribution of Income: An International Comparison," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 26(4), pages 532-545.
    14. Franco Peracchi, 2002. "The European Community Household Panel: A review," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 63-90.
    15. Zandvakili, Sourushe, 1994. "Income Distribution and Redistribution through Taxation: An International Comparison," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 473-491.
    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. Ivica Urban, 2014. "Contributions of taxes and benefits to vertical and horizontal effects," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 619-645, March.
    2. Immervoll, Herwig, 2004. "Falling up the stairs: an exploration of the effects of ‘bracket creep’ on household incomes," EUROMOD Working Papers EM3/04, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Miles Corak & Christine Lietz & Holly Sutherland, 2005. "The Impact of Tax and Transfer Systems on Children in the European Union," Papers inwopa05/30, Innocenti Working Papers.
    4. Levy, Horacio & Nogueira, José Ricardo & Siqueira, Rozane Bezerra & Immervoll, Herwig & O'Donoghue, Cathal, 2010. "Simulating the impact of inflation on the progressivity of personal income tax in Brazil," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 64(4), December.
    5. Van Kerm, Philippe, 2006. "Comparisons of income mobility profiles," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-36, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    6. Heiko Müller & Caren Sureth, 2009. "Income tax statistics analysis: A comparison of microsimulation versus group simulation," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 2(1), pages 32-48.
    7. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Jalbert, Vincent & Araar, Abdelkrim, 2000. "Classical Horizontal Inequity and Reranking: an Integrated Approach," Cahiers de recherche 0002, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
    8. Immervoll, Herwig & Richardson, Linda, 2011. "Redistribution Policy and Inequality Reduction in OECD Countries: What Has Changed in Two Decades?," IZA Discussion Papers 6030, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Duclos, J.Y., 1995. "Relative Performance, Relative Deprivation and Generalised Gini Indices of Inequality and Horizontal Inequity," Papers 9514, Laval - Recherche en Politique Economique.
    10. Silvia Avram & Horacio Levy & Holly Sutherland, 2014. "Income redistribution in the European Union," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-29, December.
    11. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1997. "The asymptotic distribution of linear indices of inequality, progressivity and redistribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 51-57, January.
    12. Verbist, Gerlinde, 2005. "Replacement incomes and taxes: a distributional analysis for the EU-15 countries," EUROMOD Working Papers EM2/05, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    13. Daniela Mantovani & Fotis Papadopoulos & Holly Sutherland & Panos Tsakloglou, 2006. "Pension Incomes in the European Union: Policy Reform Strategies in Comparative Perspective," Research in Labor Economics, in: Micro-Simulation in Action, pages 27-71, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1998. "Social evaluation functions, economic isolation and the Suits index of progressivity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 103-121, July.
    15. Duclos, J.Y., 1995. "Economic Isolation, Inequality, and the Suits Index of Progressivity," Papers 9510, Laval - Recherche en Politique Economique.
    16. , - & Sutherland, Holly, 2005. "Micro-level analysis of the European social agenda: combating poverty and social exclusion through changes in social and fiscal policy: final report," EUROMOD Working Papers EM8/05, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Jalbert, Vincent & Araar, Abdelkrim, 2003. "Classical Horizontal Inequity and Reranking: an Integrating Approach," Cahiers de recherche 0306, CIRPEE.
    18. Robson, Matthew & O’Donnell, Owen & Van Ourti, Tom, 2024. "Aversion to health inequality — Pure, income-related and income-caused," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    19. Stephen P. Jenkins & Philippe Van Kerm, 2016. "Assessing Individual Income Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(332), pages 679-703, October.
    20. Guido Erreygers & Roselinde Kessels, 2017. "Socioeconomic Status and Health: A New Approach to the Measurement of Bivariate Inequality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-23, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income inequality; Redistribution; Microsimulation; European Union;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:ihs:ihsesp:184. 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: Doris Szoncsitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deihsat.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.