Inequity in American Schools: A New Perspective on the Distributional Effects of School Expenditures on Economic Well‐Being

This article explores how inequities in public K‐12 school spending impact the distribution of economic well‐being across American households with public school students in 1989 and 2000. Adapting concepts from the public finance literature, I explore the impact of school spending on the vertical and horizontal equity and its impact relative to other types of public spending on social programs and taxation. Conventionally, vertical equity refers to the size of the income gaps between households. Horizontal equity refers to the ranking of households along the income distribution with any change in ranks producing horizontal inequity. My main findings show that school spending, when converted into a component of income, served to reduce extended‐income inequality through improvements in vertical equity without the discriminatory implications of exacerbating horizontal inequity across households. Additionally, this impact was at least as large as that of spending on other social programs. This finding bolsters standard arguments for equity and progressivity of school finance across students.     

中国卫生筹资的再分配效应

利用2006年中国健康与营养调查(CHNS)数据和类似于税收再分配的分解方法,将卫生筹资的再分配效应分为三部分:累进效应、水平平等效应和再排序效应。卫生筹资增加了收入不平等,表现出了亲富人的再分配,主要原因在于水平不平等和再排序效应,如果相同收入的人群进行相同的卫生支付,再分配效应将会降低64%,另一原因在于卫生筹资系统的累退性。在同为从穷人到富人的再分配中,农村卫生筹资亲富人的再分配程度高于城市;农村卫生筹资的累退程度大于城市;农村卫生筹资的水平不平等小于城市。     

The concept and measurement of horizontal inequity

This paper discusses the concept of horizontal equity and presents three formal principles as a basis for making comparisons of the extent of horizontal inequity produced by different redistributions. A condition analogous to the Lorenz criterion used for inequality comparisons is established under which the horizontal inequities of redistributions can be ranked without recourse to a cardinal measure of inequity. Ordinal comparisons are not possible in many cases. The three principles suggest three properties that ‘reasonable’ measures of horizontal inequity should possess. A class of measures which satisfies the properties is proposed. Most other existing measures are found not to satisfy them.     

Impact of Taxes and Benefits on Inequality among Groups of Income Units

This paper analyzes the redistributive impact of the fiscal system and simultaneously explains how each tax and benefit instrument satisfies the principles of vertical and horizontal equity within and across different groups of income units. The decompositions of the redistributive effect are based on new axioms concerning the vertical and horizontal equity of the overall fiscal system, including taxes and benefits. The method is based on pairwise comparisons of income units and the “micro” concepts of income supremacy change, deprivation from reranking, and income distance change. The decomposition results provide more detailed insights into the income redistribution process than is typical in the literature. This is illustrated by an empirical application of the method to the Croatian scheme of personal income taxes and non‐pension social benefits, in which households are divided into two groups, those with and those without children.     

山东省烟威地区农村经济可持续发展的公平性研究

烟威地区农村经济发展中内部经济发展不平衡带来代内不公平现象明显；提高农村经济发展效率的同时，对公平却造成了重大的冲击，如过度消耗自然资源、污染环境等，影响到后代人发展对环境资源的需求，在代际之间产生了不公平现象。在坚持可持续发展中应以合理布局、横向联合、政策倾斜、兼并带动、以点带面、提供援助等措施来维系代内公平。依法实现渔业资源、土地资源、水资源、矿产资源、生物资源等资源的持续利用，以实现代际公平。     

THE INCOME REDISTRIBUTION EFFECT OF CHINA'S PERSONAL INCOME TAX: WHAT THE MICRO‐DATA SAY

This article uses continuous micro‐level data to investigate the income redistribution effect of the personal income tax (PIT) in China beginning in 1997. We find that the average tax rate plays a larger role in determining the income redistribution effect of PIT than tax progressivity does. Although tax progressivity decreased as a result of rising personal incomes and a constant PIT policy prior to 2005, the income redistribution effect of the PIT improved as a result of the higher average tax rate. The tax reform beginning in 2006 increased tax progressivity while decreasing the average tax rate, thereby weakening the income redistribution effect of the PIT. Further analysis indicates that the middle‐income group was the only net loser before 2005, but it benefited from the PIT policy reform. A cross‐country comparison shows that China has a lower PIT burden and higher progressivity than developed countries; in fact, China's levels of progressivity and tax burden are similar to those of Latin American countries. (JEL H24, D31, H31)     

Who benefits most from property assessment taxes? Evidence from Los Angeles County

Assessment caps on property taxes are often assumed to benefit affluent homeowners the most with little gains for low-income households. Quantile regression results for Los Angeles County show that on average effective property tax rates decrease by $1994 per year due to length of ownership in the 50th percentile because of California’s Proposition 13 assessment cap. There is evidence of both horizontal and vertical inequity across the entire sample. Low-income households do benefit from California’s assessment cap as they are typically infrequent movers but their effective tax rates decrease over time. However, the most affluent households by market value do not gain the most and there is no evidence of horizontal inequity for these homeowners. There is also no evidence of horizontal inequity for middle-income households. Property tax savings vary between $18,000 and $40,000, depending on the assessed value decile and percentage quantile.     

Changing the Tax Mix

A tax mix change, including a component of the Australian tax reforms, involves a net increase in taxation of consumption and a net decrease in income taxation. If the tax mix change is approximately aggregate revenue neutral and retains current vertical equity, the new income tax rate schedule must be more progressive than the current schedule. The Australian proposal involves a revenue shortfall and some erosion of vertical progressivity. For the large proportion of households who save very little, the tax mix change has negligible effects on incentives and efficiency, and on total tax paid.     

LIFETIME AND VERTICAL INTERTEMPORAL INEQUALITY, INCOME SMOOTHING, AND REDISTRIBUTION: A SOCIAL WELFARE APPROACH

Between and within-households intertemporal inequality indices are proposed to highlight the vertical and lifetime (i.e. cyclical) components of overall intertemporal inequality. Comparison with the classical static inequality indices is made. Income redistribution and smoothing (i.e. stabilization) are conveniently defined as the public policy impact on welfare, by means of the relative increase in intertemporal vertical and cyclical equity, respectively. The issue is important as many public policies are aimed at both (vertical and cyclical equity) objectives. Our approach provides a more appropriate evaluation of the desirability of public reforms aimed at achieving a greater vertical and cyclical equity, within a social welfare framework.     

我国个人所得税的再分配效应分解分析——以我国中部某地区为样本

本文以2007年我国中部地区某市工资收入和纳税情况为样本,采用修正的AJL分解法,对工资薪金所得税的再分配效应进行分解,揭示了税收再分配效应的损失,为改革和完善我国个人所得税制提供了现实依据。结果表明:工资薪金所得税的再分配效应损失为2.7%,其中水平不平等效应和再排序效应产生的损失分别为0.18%和2.51%;群体内再排序效应、群体间再排序效应以及AJL再排序效应占再排序效应的比重分别为70.55%、1.11%和28.33%。虽然该市工资薪金所得税再分配效应的损失相对较小,但从全国范围的个人所得税来看,可以预期税收再分配效应损失是较大的。     

个人所得税的累进性与再分配效应——以湖北省为例

以湖北省城镇调查数据为分析对象,以指数为工具,本文实证考察了我国个人所得税的累进性及再分配效应。得到的结论是我国个人所得税再分配效应很弱,但其原因并不在于税收的实际累进性小,而在于个人所得税的平均税率低,税收规模很小。同时,在各类收入中,工资性收入的个人所得税累进性很强,经营性收入及财产性收入的个人所得税累进性较差,甚至出现累退性。提高个人所得税规模、加强对经营性收入及财产性收入的税收征管、以家庭为单位征收是个人所得税进一步改革的方向。     

Equity in Poverty Program Evaluations

Poverty‐reducing programs often use indicators other than household income to transfer resources to the poor which has important implications in terms of equity of the program. This paper offers a decomposition methodology to analyze the horizontal and vertical equity components of a redistribution policy for subgroups defined according to policy‐relevant characteristics. Our measures are derived by comparing the cost of inequality in terms of equally distributed equivalent poverty gaps in the pre‐transfer income and post‐transfer income distributions. An application to the poverty‐reducing program Oportunidades in Mexico in 2006 reveals that the use of indicator variables more strongly correlated with pre‐transfer incomes in rural households can improve the redistributive effect while it also points out the difficulties of the program in targeting different levels of support among the poor, both within and between groups.     

Analysis of the equity preference influence in customer participation incentives

In this paper, equity preference is introduced into the customer participation (CP) incentive problem and new principal–agent models are built. The proposed models are different from the Holmstrom and Milgrom's models (1987) because of the consideration of equity preference, which emphasize the material utility and equitable distribution of customers. By assuming that the incentives that firms pay to customers have the same effect on monetary incentives, the optimal incentives are discussed, in which the equilibrium solutions are explored and the respective impact of horizontal equity preference and vertical equity preference on CP incentives are compared. The proposed models are validated by numerical experiments in the product enhancement project of a large software enterprise in Guangzhou. It can be demonstrated that 1) asymmetric information induces lazy behaviors of customers concerning vertical equity preference; 2) horizontal equity preference promotes the work enthusiasm of customers in CP more than self-interest does; and 3) it is more conducive to obtain a much bigger expected income when firms employ customers with horizontal equity preference to participate in innovation process.     

Immigration,Conflict, and Redistribution

In this paper, we analyze how the possibility of conflict between natives and immigrants shapes income redistribution in developed democracies. This possibility can generate income redistribution towards immigrants even if they have no voting rights. We show that the threat of conflict between natives and immigrants lowers vertical income redistribution (from the rich to the poor) as the level of immigration increases. The opposite holds for horizontal income redistribution (from natives to immigrants), which increases with the level of immigration. Income inequality weakens the negative effect of immigration on vertical redistribution, but it also reduces horizontal redistribution. These theoretical predictions are consistent with the results of our empirical analysis on data from 29 European countries: larger immigrant populations are associated with more redistribution towards immigrants and lower vertical redistribution.     

Four Levers of Redistribution: The Impact of Tax and Transfer Systems on Inequality Reduction

We use harmonized survey data from the Luxembourg Income Study to assess the redistributive impact of taxes and transfers across 22 OECD countries over the 1999–2016 period. After imputing missing tax data (employer social-security contributions), we measure the reduction in income inequality from four key levers of tax and transfer systems: the average tax rate, tax progressivity, the average transfer rate, and transfer targeting. Our methodological improvements produce the following results. First, tax redistribution dominates transfer redistribution (excluding pensions) in most countries. Second, targeting explains very little of the cross-country variation in inequality reduction. In contrast, both tax progressivity and the average tax rate have large impacts on redistribution. Last, there seem to be political tradeoffs: high average tax rates are not found together with highly progressive tax systems.     

Equity and policy effectiveness with imperfect targeting

We propose a general approach that jointly integrates horizontal and vertical equity criteria in the assessment of poverty alleviation programs, with the strength of each criterion being captured through its own inequity-aversion parameter. This contrasts with the assessment of poverty alleviation programs done with simple under-coverage and leakage ratios or with other methods that do not take into account the heterogeneity of the poor and that do not address directly the social benefits of achieving normative criteria. Our methodology is illustrated using Tunisian data and two alternative poverty alleviation policies. We find inter alia that the social ranking of commodity and socio-demographic targeting in Tunisia depends on the policymaker's comparative preference for vertical and horizontal equity.     

生态环境、经济收入与公众健康的关系——基于我国29个省市区面板数据的经验研究

公众的健康水平受到其所处自然和社会环境的共同影响,文章利用我国29个省市区的面板数据,构建了同时包含生态环境与经济收入因素的公众健康影响模型,检验了生态环境污染、治理状况以及经济收入、收入不均对人口健康的影响。研究结果表明,环境污染已经威胁到人们的健康,而污染治理投入能缓解污染的危害,同时收入公平性比绝对收入水平对健康影响更大。最后,在此基础上指出走人与自然协调、社会公平发展道路的重要意义。     

Openness, income-tax progressivity, and inflation

This paper considers a model of an open economy in which the degree of income-tax progressivity influences the interaction among openness, central bank independence, and the inflation rate. Our model suggests that an increase in the progressivity of the tax system induces a smaller response in real output to a change in the price level. This implies that increased income-tax progressivity reduces the equilibrium inflation rate and that the effect of increased income-tax progressivity on inflation is smaller when the central bank places a higher weight on inflation or when there is greater openness. Examination of cross-country inflation data provides empirical support for these key predictions.     

关于环境污染问题实质的探讨

本文认为环境污染问题不是效率问题，因为它在经济上可能是有效率的，也可能是无效率的；不是代际问题，因为它可导致代际公平，也可能导致代际不公平。环境污染问题实质上是公平问题：当代一部人从中得益，另一部分人从中受害。有效率或无效率的成果常被不公正地分配，代际不公平来源于代内不公平。     

Help the Low Skilled or Let the Hardworking Thrive? A Study of Fairness in Optimal Income Taxation

In a model where agents have unequal wages and heterogeneous preferences, we study the optimal redistribution via an income tax, when the social objective is based on a combination of efficiency and fairness principles, and when incentive issues are taken into account. We show how some fairness principles entail specific features for the optimal taxes, such as progressivity or tax exemption for incomes below the minimum wage.