Can a Poverty-Reducing and Progressive Tax and Transfer System Hurt the Poor?

Higgins, Sean; Lustig, Nora

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2623141

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 102 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, any individual receiving (as benefits) a fiscal expenditure sees his/her income increase; and any person paying a tax (or other revenue collection) sees her/his income decrease. The team can summarize these individual gains and losses through the Fiscal Impoverishment (FI) and Fiscal Gains to the Poor (FGP) indices (first proposed by Higgins and Lustig 2016).…”

Section: Figure 5 Fiscal Policy's Impact On the Poverty Headcount Ratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty in Zambia

Fuente¹,

Rosales

Jellema

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

show abstract

Section: Figure 5 Fiscal Policy's Impact On the Poverty Headcount Ratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty in Zambia

Fuente¹,

Rosales

Jellema

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The fiscal transition matrix, for analysis within the CEQ framework, was introduced inHiggins and Lustig (2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Incidence of Taxes and Spending in Sri Lanka

Arunatilake¹,

Inchauste²,

Lustig³

2017

The Distributional Impact of Taxes and Transfers: Evidence From Eight Developing Countries

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sri Lanka has made substantial progress in reducing poverty over the past decade. However, important social and economic development needs persist at a time when revenue collections have been disappointing, reducing the government's ability to expand spending. In this context, this paper has sought to evaluate the effectiveness of fiscal policy in addressing inequality and accelerating poverty reduction. The exercise consisted of undertaking incidence analysis of the major tax and transfer programs individually, and then combining them to evaluate the incidence of fiscal policy as a whole. Although we could not carry out incidence analysis of all budget items, we have analyzed the major tax and spending items for which individual tax and benefits can be assigned to households using microdata. The analysis finds that taxes and social spending were redistributive and poverty-reducing overall. However, given the country's relatively low revenue and the limited fiscal space, overall social spending was small, leading to very limited impacts. On the spending side, direct transfers are absolutely progressive, so that their marginal contribution is both equalizing and poverty-reducing. In contrast, spending on indirect subsidies increased with a large part of the resources benefiting nonpoor households. Finally, the analysis found that inkind transfers in the form of education and health are equalizing. Going forward, any efforts to reform taxes could usefully include distributional analysis to assess their impact.

show abstract

“…When individuals who are measured as poor at pre-fiscal income receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes, we count these as fiscal gains to the poor. We summarize these individual gains and losses through the Fiscal Impoverishment (FI) and Fiscal Gains to the Poor (FGP) indices (first proposed by Higgins and Lustig 2016). Table 4 shows that as a result of all taxes and transfers (excluding transfers made in-kind), 22.8 percent of the population in Uganda was fiscally impoverished in 2016/17, almost twice as much as in 2012/13 19 .…”

Section: Fiscal Impoverishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%