Inequality Measurement and Tax/Transfer Policy

Patricia Apps () and Ray Rees
Additional contact information
Patricia Apps: University of Sydney

No 13326, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We provide a critique of the standard methodology which bases welfare comparisons between households on deflating household income and consumption by an equivalence scale. We argue that this leads to support for tax/transfer policies that significantly disadvantage low to middle income households and women as second earners. We base the critique both on a theoretical model of the family household and a detailed analysis of Australian income and employment data.

Keywords: inequality; equivalence scales; tax/transfer policy; families (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D31 H21 H24 H31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - revised version published in: International Tax and Public Finance, 2022, 29, 953–984

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13326.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Inequality measurement and tax/transfer policy (2022)
Working Paper: Inequality Measurement and Tax/Transfer Policy (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13326

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().