Redistributional Effects of Progressive Income Taxes

Progressivity of personal income tax in Croatia: decomposition of tax base and rate effects

“…1 = ν we could well conclude that PIT is progressive due to the even mixture of allowance and rate effect. Therefore, Lambert (1999) suggests the use of S-Gini indices in international and intertemporal comparisons as a way in which "robustness of conclusions derived using the regular Gini-based [progressivity measures] can be tested". Another factor that can lead to misleading comparisons is population coverage.…”

On the Measurement of Intra-Generational Lifetime Redistribution in Pension Systems

“…3 In this paper, we strictly refer to complete orderings as obtained through progressivity indexes. However, for the sake of robustness, Lorenz dominance conditions should be preferred (Lambert, 1999;Dardanoni and Lambert, 2000). 4 For a general overview on progressivity indexes see Kiefer (1984).…”

“…K is defined as the difference between the concentration index (C), calculated on the distribution of tax liabilities, and the Gini of the distribution of theoretical lifetime incomes at retirement (pre-tax incomes). In other words, K measures the disproportionality of tax liabilities with respect to the distribution of theoretical lifetime incomes at retirement (Lambert, 1999). Given non-negative individual tax liabilities, it is defined in [−(1+G( * )), (1−G( * ))] and it is positive in the case of progressive pension schemes.…”

Taxation and Redistribution: Some Clarifications

“…11 See, for example, the surveys and analysis in Lambert (1999Lambert ( , 2001. 12 For example, in Davies and Hoy's (2002) comparisons of flat and graduated taxes, they emphasize the case with no demogrant and then consider how their analysis changes when a demogrant is allowed with a flat tax, but they do not consider how allowing a graduated tax to have a demogrant would change the results (even though, as argued here, such a scheme is actually closest to typical existing tax/transfer systems).…”

“…Thus, to determine whether a given redistributive policy change is desirable or undesirable requires assessing its effects (including incentive effects of taxation and effects due to adjustments in government spending) and aggregating them using a social welfare function. For these and other reasons, it is unclear that for normative (policy) purposes there is value in measuring progressivity or redistribution (or inequality or poverty, for that matter), although such measurement is the subject of a significant literature -surveyed in Lambert (1999Lambert ( , 2001) -and, moreover, is the focus of much analysis of tax reform proposals. On the general question of the need for such measures, see Kaplow (2002).…”