Imputation of Gross Amounts from Net Incomes in Household Surveys. An Application using EUROMOD

Herwig Immervoll and Cathal O'Donoghue

Computational Economics from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Household micro-datasets often do not contain information on gross incomes. We present an algorithm which exploits the tax- and contribution rules built into tax-benefit models to convert net income information into gross amounts. Using EUROMOD, a multi-country taxbenefit model covering all fifteen countries of the European Union, net-to-gross conversions can be performed for a large number of countries utilising existing models of relevant fiscal rules. The algorithm takes into account all relevant complexities of tax- and contribution rules and can, thus, produce much more accurate results than statistical models which estimate netto- gross ratios using only a few explanatory variables. Among the features of the algorithm is the ability to distinguish between different individuals in the same household. Even if individuals’ incomes are taxed jointly, the algorithm is able to approximate separate net-togross factors for individuals in the same fiscal unit. This is possible since EUROMOD can accurately assign people to appropriate fiscal units. In addition, it is in certain cases possible to produce different net-to-gross ratios for different income components. We undertake a case study to illustrate the importance of deriving separate net-to-gross factors for different individuals within a household/fiscal unit and for different income sources of the same individual.

Keywords: Microsimulation; Imputation; Income; Net/Gross (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 C81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-02-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-eec and nep-pke
Note: Type of Document - ; figures: included. EUROMOD web-site:
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/comp/papers/0302/0302001.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Imputation of gross amounts from net incomes in household surveys: an application using EUROMOD (2001)
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:wpa:wuwpco:0302001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Computational Economics from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).