Income distribution determinants and public spending efficiency

Antonio Afonso, Ludger Schuknecht () and Vito Tanzi ()

No 861, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: In this paper we examine the impact of public spending, education, and institutions on income distribution in advanced economies. We also assess the efficiency of public spending in redistributing income by using a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) nonparametric approach. We find that public policies significantly affect income distribution, notably via social spending, and indirectly via high quality education/human capital and via sound economic institutions. Moreover, for our set of OECD countries, and within a two-step approach, several so-called non-discretionary factors help explaining public social spending inefficiencies. JEL Classification: C14, H40, H50.

Keywords: Income redistribution; public spending; efficiency; DEA. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-eff
Date: 2008-01
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Related works:
Working Paper: Income Distribution Determinants and Public Spending Efficiency (2008)
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