Drawing from the formal setting of the optimal tax theory (Mirrlees 1971), the paper identifies the level of Rawlsianism of some European social planners starting from the observation of real data and redistribution systems and uses it to build a metric that allows measuring the degree of...

We apply a standard tax and benefit incidence analysis to estimate the impact on inequality and poverty of direct taxes, indirect taxes and subsidies, and social spending (cash and food transfers and in-kind transfers in education and health). The extent of inequality reduction induced by direct...

Conventional wisdom states that fiscal policy redistributes little in Latin America. Lower tax revenues and – above all – lower and less progressive transfers have been identified as the main cause. Existing studies show that, while in Europe the distribution of all transfers combined (cash...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and adopt a generalised version of Roemer's (1998) Equality of Opportunity (EOp) framework, which we call extended EOp, for analysing second-best optimal income taxation. Unlike the pure EOp criterion of Roemer (1998) the extended EOp criterion allows...

Previous estimates of unfair inequality of opportunity (IOp) are only lower bounds because of the unobservability of the full set of endowed circumstances beyond the sphere of individual responsibility. In this paper, we suggest a new estimator based on a fixed effects panel model which...

This paper discusses asymptotic and bootstrap inference methods for a set of inequality and progressivity indices. The application of non-degenerate U-statistics theory is described, particularly through the derivation of the Suits-progressivity index distribution. We have also provided formulae...

The paper focuses on happiness inequality, an issue rather neglected in the literature. We analyze the increase in happiness inequality observed in Germany between 1991 and 2007 by means of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) database. We make use of a recent methodology that allows...

This paper aims at analyzing the redistributive impact that the inclusion of imputed rental market value of owner-occupied housing would have when quantifying ability to pay, rather than the legal imputation that considers cadastral values. We consider the Spanish Personal Income Tax as...

We evaluate household transport consumption inequalities in France, Denmark and Cyprus, investigate their temporal dynamics and estimate the redistributive effects of taxes on different commodity categories. A comparative analysis is carried out in light of the differences between these...

This paper presents a tax-benefit incidence analysis for a large time period. The objective is to know if has been income redistribution across Mexican households during the last twenty years, since during this period the Mexican economy has suffered important structural changes and as well its...