Income Distribution Determinants and Public Spending Efficiency

Antonio Afonso, Ludger Schknecht and Vito Tanzi

No 2008/05, Working Papers from Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon.

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.

Keywords: income redistribution; public spending; efficiency; DEA. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 H40 H50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ltv
Date: 2008-01
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Working Paper: Income distribution determinants and public spending efficiency (2008)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp52008

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