Publicly provided services and the distribution of households' economic resources

Marical, François; d’Ercole, Marco Mira; Vaalavuo, Maria; Verbist, Gerlinde

doi:10.1787/eco_studies-v2008-art1-en

Cited by 42 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…However, in many of the other OECD countries overall social spending was fairly evenly balanced between cash transfers and other spending. This is using a definition of social expenditure that does not include education, so if one adds on education spending the relative importance of non-cash spending is even more obvious, as brought out in Marical, Mira d'Ercole, Vaalavuo and Verbist (2008). They conclude that public spending on health, education and 'other services' in the OECD social expenditure database represent an amount comparable to public cash transfers, exceeding those transfers in 11 OECD countries.…”

Section: Non-cash Social Spending and Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Marical, Mira d'Ercole, Vaalavuo andVerbist (2006 -andalso Chapter 9 in OECD, 2008) look at the impact of public spending on health, education and social housing on income inequality in OECD countries, concluding that they generally contribute to narrowing inequality, though not usually by as much as cash transfers and direct taxes combined; they do not look at corresponding results for poverty. Paulus, Sutherland and Tsakloglou (2010) on the other hand assess the impact of valuing non-cash or in-kind benefits from public housing subsidies, education and healthcare in five European countries, recalculating both inequality and relative poverty measures when this value is added to cash income.…”

Section: [Table 4 Social Expenditure Distinguishing Cash and Non-casmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Welfare State and Antipoverty Policy in Rich Countries

Marx

Nolan²,

Olivera

2015

Handbook of Income Distribution

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Section: Non-cash Social Spending and Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: [Table 4 Social Expenditure Distinguishing Cash and Non-casmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Welfare State and Antipoverty Policy in Rich Countries

Marx

Nolan²,

Olivera

2015

Handbook of Income Distribution

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“…Recent years have therefore seen an increasing academic literature on the distributive implications of publicly-provided services (see Marical et al 2006, OECD, 2008aSutherland and Tsakloglou, 2009;Tsakloglou et al, 2009 andVaalavuo, 2010).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Incorporating the value of government services in household income raises a range of questions, some of which are conceptual, and others are methodological (see e.g. Marical et al 2006;Garfinkel et al 2006;OECD 2008a;Aaberge et al 2010a;Paulus et al, 2010), in particular: a) Which of the government services should be included for the analysis of the impact on poverty?…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Publicly Provided Services on the Distribution of Resources

Förster

Vaalavuo

Verbist

2012

OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers

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The distributional impact of in‐kind public benefits in European countries

Paulus

Sutherland

Τσακλόγλου

2010

J Policy Anal Manage

132

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of disposable income in another. We estimate the size and incidence of in kind or "non cash" benefits from public housing subsidies, education and health care for five European countries using comparable methods and data. Inequality in the augmented income measure is dramatically lower than in disposable income, with the effects of the three components varying in importance across countries. Adapting equivalence scales to take proper account of differences in needs for health care and education across population members reduces the scale of the effect, but does not eliminate it. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYThe usual practice when performing inter-temporal or cross-country comparisons of inequality and poverty is to rely on distributions of disposable income. This practice may be misleading since an individual's command over resources is determined not only by her spending power over commodities she can buy in the market but also by resources available to her through the in kind provisions of the welfare state as well as private non cash incomes. The contribution of cash and non-cash income components to total (augmented) income is likely to vary considerably both across time and across countries, thus introducing biases in the corresponding comparisons.The present paper provides estimates of the size and incidence of three publicly provided services (housing, education and health care) in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK). Cross-country differences are considerable. In the five countries examined in the paper, the value of their services is equal to 17.5%-26.7% of total household disposable income. Yet, in all countries, the corresponding in kind transfers appear to reduced measured inequality and (relative) poverty very substantially. The effect is more pronounced in households with children or elderly persons.Nevertheless, doubts are raised regarding the appropriateness of static incidence analysisthat is standard practice in the corresponding literature -without adjusting the equivalence scales for the extra needs of households for education and ...

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Publicly provided services and the distribution of households' economic resources

Cited by 42 publications

References 39 publications

The Welfare State and Antipoverty Policy in Rich Countries

The Welfare State and Antipoverty Policy in Rich Countries

The Impact of Publicly Provided Services on the Distribution of Resources

The distributional impact of in‐kind public benefits in European countries

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