We solve the problem of a social planner who seeks to minimize inequality via transfers with a fixed public budget in a distribution of exogenously given incomes. The appropriate solution method depends on the objective function: If it is convex, as in the case of the absolute mean deviation, it...

We analyze the distributive justice of the combined burden of taxes, social security contributions and public transfers on employee households. In order to investigate whether the treatment of families by the aggregate tax-benefit system can be regarded as "fair" we compare the equivalent...

We study three budget-neutral reforms of the German tax and transfer system designed to improve work incentives for people with low incomes: a feasible flat tax reform that provides a basic income which is equal to the current level of the means tested unemployment benefit, and two alternative...

This paper analyses the distributive impacts of various regulatory and institutional settings of European schemes of social assistance. For this purpose, two sets of classifications of European schemes of social assistance are introduced that classify the systems according to regulatory...

Constructing measures of post-tax income inequality that are consistent with national accounts requires the allocation of the entirety of government expenditure to individuals. About half of government expenditure in the United States takes the form of in-kind collective expenditure (e.g.,...

Individuals vary considerably in how much they earn during their lifetimes. We study how the tax-and-transfer system o sets inequalities in lifetime earnings, which would otherwise translate into differences in living standards. Based on a life-cycle model, we find that redistribution by taxes...

Commodity taxes play an important role in Brazil and raise around 60% of the total tax revenue. This heavy reliance renders commodity taxation one of the main tools available to the government for collecting revenue and securing redistribution. In fact, Brazilian income inequity is one of the...

This paper evaluates the linkage between social security strategies and redistributive effects in EU social transfer systems. It is argued that the various European systems produce different patterns of redistribution that may be explained by the adoption of different mixes of social security...

Individuals vary considerably in how much they earn during their lifetimes. This study examines the role of the tax-and-transfer system in mitigating such inequalities, which could otherwise lead to disparities in living standards. Utilizing a life-cycle model, we determine that taxes and...