The Distributional Impact of Taxes and Transfers

The Distributional Impact of Taxes and Transfers
Author: Gabriela Inchauste
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2017-09-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464810923

The World Bank has partnered with the Commitment to Equity Institute at Tulane University to implement their diagnostic tool—the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Assessment—designed to assess how taxation and public expenditures affect income inequality, poverty, and different economic groups. The approach relies on comprehensive fiscal incidence analysis, which measures the contribution of each individual intervention to poverty and inequality reduction as well as the combined impact of taxes and social spending. The CEQ Assessment provide an evidence base upon which alternative reform options can be analyzed. The use of a common methodology makes the results comparable across countries. This volume presents eight country studies that examine the distributional effects of individual programs and policy measures—and the net effect of each country’s mix of policies and programs. These case studies were produced in the context of Bank policy dialogue and have since been used to propose alternative reform options.

Economic Transfers in the United States

Economic Transfers in the United States
Author: Marilyn Moon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226535061

In recent years the definition of an economic transfer—a payment to an individual or institution that does not arise out of current productive activity—has been subject to even wider interpretation. This volume addresses that trend and introduces new methods of measuring transfers in the American economy. Social security, private pension benefits, housing, and health care are traditional kinds of transfers. Accurate measurements of the degree and effect of these and of other, newly interpreted transfers are vital to economic policy making. Though this volume is not directly concerned with policy-making issues, it does impinge on many areas of current public concern; methods of transfer valuation, for example, may affect how we view the status of the aged. Researchers, policy analysts, and those who compile statistics on which social programs are based on will value the diverse approaches of these ten papers and their accompanying comments. Taken together the essays give great insight into the complexities of defining transfers and provide a wealth of new analytic methods. They were developed from material presented at the Income and Wealth Conference on Social Accounting for Transfers held at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1982.

The Poverty and Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing: Channels and Policy Implications

The Poverty and Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing: Channels and Policy Implications
Author: Baoping Shang
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2021-06-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 151357339X

Addressing the poverty and distributional impacts of carbon pricing reforms is critical for the success of ambitious actions in the fight against climate change. This paper uses a simple framework to systematically review the channels through which carbon pricing can potentially affect poverty and inequality. It finds that the channels differ in important ways along several dimensions. The paper also identifies several key gaps in the current literature and discusses some considerations on how policy designs could take into account the attributes of the channels in mitigating the impacts of carbon pricing reforms on households.

Commitment to Equity Handbook

Commitment to Equity Handbook
Author: Nora Lustig
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 1437
Release: 2023-05-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815740476

Edited by Nora Lustig, the Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty (Brookings Institution Press and CEQ Institute-Tulane University, 2nd edition, 2022) is a unique manual on the theory and practical methods to estimate the impact of taxation and public spending on inequality and poverty. In addition, the second edition covers frontier topics such as alternative approaches to measure the redistributive effect of education, health, and infrastructure spending. Policymakers, social planners, and economists are provided with a step-by-step guide to applying fiscal incidence analysis, illustrated by country studies. The 2nd edition of the Handbook has two volumes. Volume 1 is comprised of Part I, Methodology, describes what a CEQ Assessment© is and presents the theoretical underpinnings of fiscal incidence analysis and the indicators used to assess the distributive impact and effectiveness of fiscal policy. Part II, Implementation, presents the methodology on how taxes, subsidies, and social spending should be allocated. It includes a step-by step guide to completing the CEQ Master Workbook©, a multi-sheet Excel file that houses detailed information on the country’s fiscal system and the results used as inputs for policy discussions, academic papers, and policy reports. Part III, “Applications,” presents applications of the CEQ framework to low- and middle-income countries and includes simulations of policy reforms. In this 2nd edition, chapters 1, 6, and 8 have been significantly updated and two new country studies have been added to Part III. Parts IV (updated), V (new), and VI (new) are available online only. Part IV contains the CEQ Assessment’s main tools. Part V includes the databases housed in the CEQ Data Center on Fiscal Redistribution. Part VI contains the CEQ Institute’s microsimulation tools. Volume 2 (new) includes a collection of chapters whose purpose is to expand the knowledge and methodological frontiers to sharpen even further the analysis of fiscal policy’s redistributive impact. Topics include: alternative approaches to value in-kind education and health services; alternative methods to evaluate spending on infrastructure; corporate taxes and taxation on capital incomes; inter-temporal fiscal incidence and the redistributive consequences of social insurance pensions; fiscal redistribution, macroeconomic stability and growth; and, the political economy of fiscal redistribution.

Designing Fiscal Redistribution: The Role of Universal and Targeted Transfers

Designing Fiscal Redistribution: The Role of Universal and Targeted Transfers
Author: Mr.David Coady
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 27
Release: 2020-06-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513547046

There is a growing debate on the relative merits of universal and targeted social assistance transfers in achieving income redistribution objectives. While the benefits of targeting are clear, i.e., a larger poverty impact for a given transfer budget or lower fiscal cost for a given poverty impact, in practice targeting also comes with various costs, including incentive, administrative, social and political costs. The appropriate balance between targeted and universal transfers will therefore depend on how countries decide to trade-off these costs and benefits as well as on the potential for redistribution through taxes. This paper discusses the trade-offs that arise in different country contexts and the potential for strengthening fiscal redistribution in advanced and developing countries, including through expanding transfer coverage and progressive tax financing.

Fiscal Redistribution and Social Welfare

Fiscal Redistribution and Social Welfare
Author: Mr.David Coady
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2019-03-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484398084

Fiscal policy is a key tool for achieving distributional objectives in advanced economies. This paper embeds the discussion of fiscal redistribution within the standard social welfare framework, which lends itself to a transparent and practical evaluation of the extent and determinants of fiscal redistribution. Differences in fiscal redistribution are decomposed into differences in the magnitude of transfers (fiscal effort) and in the progressivity of transfers (fiscal progressivity). Fiscal progressivity is further decomposed into differences in the distribution of transfers across income groups (targeting performance) and in the social welfare returns to targeting due to varying initial levels of income inequality (targeting returns). This decomposition provides a clear distinction between the concepts of progressivity and targeting, and clarifies the relationship between them. For illustrative purposes, the framework is applied to data for 28 EU countries to determine the factors explaining differences in their fiscal redistribution and to discuss patterns in fiscal redistribution highlighted in the literature.

Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean

Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean
Author: Ricardo Paes de Barros
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2008-11-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821377469

Equality of opportunity is about leveling the playing field so that circumstances such as gender, ethnicity, place of birth, or family background do not influence a person s life chances. Success in life should depend on people s choices, effort and talents, not to their circumstances at birth. 'Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean' introduces new methods for measuring inequality of opportunities and makes an assessment of its evolution in Latin America over a decade. An innovative Human Opportunity Index and other parametric and non-parametric techniques are presented for quantifying inequality based on circumstances exogenous to individual efforts. These methods are applied to gauge inequality of opportunities in access to basic services for children, learning achievement for youth, and income and consumption for adults.

Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth

Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth
Author: Mr.Jonathan David Ostry
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2014-02-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484397657

The Fund has recognized in recent years that one cannot separate issues of economic growth and stability on one hand and equality on the other. Indeed, there is a strong case for considering inequality and an inability to sustain economic growth as two sides of the same coin. Central to the Fund’s mandate is providing advice that will enable members’ economies to grow on a sustained basis. But the Fund has rightly been cautious about recommending the use of redistributive policies given that such policies may themselves undercut economic efficiency and the prospects for sustained growth (the so-called “leaky bucket” hypothesis written about by the famous Yale economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s). This SDN follows up the previous SDN on inequality and growth by focusing on the role of redistribution. It finds that, from the perspective of the best available macroeconomic data, there is not a lot of evidence that redistribution has in fact undercut economic growth (except in extreme cases). One should be careful not to assume therefore—as Okun and others have—that there is a big tradeoff between redistribution and growth. The best available macroeconomic data do not support such a conclusion.