INCOME INEQUALITY IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS AND RECENT TRENDS

In this paper we present results on the distribution of income in Australia and New Zealand that can be compared with those for a range of other advanced countries. The framework of analysis, concepts and definitions used have been developed as part of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Using data for the early 1980s, the results indicate that the income distributions in Australia and New Zealand are not, as previous research has suggested, more equal than those in other countries. Neither country has an equivalent net family income inequality ranking in the top half of the eight countries studied. Further analysis indicates increasing inequality in Australia in the first half of the 1980s and, on the basis of some indicators, in New Zealand also. The paper does not investigate the causes of these increases in inequality, although the results indicate that the rise in property income has been a factor behind them.     

Income distribution and redistribution through taxation: An international comparison

Income tax progressivity is studied with Generalized Entropy measures of inequality. Luxembourg Income Study data sets for nine countries are used for international comparison and analysis. progressivity indices are generated by using the Generalized Entropy family as well as Atkinson measures. We further our understanding by examining pre-tax and post-tax measures of inequality based respectively on gross and disposable household incomes. The decomposition property is shown to be desirable for enhancing our knowledge of income inequality and the redistributive effect of income taxes. Thus decomposition based on family size and number of earners is conducted. We learn that countries vary in their emphasis regarding redistributive effects of income taxes.     

Does the Profile of Income Inequality Matter for Economic Growth?

This paper investigates the importance of the shape of the income distribution as a determinant of economic growth in a panel of countries. Using comparable data on disposable income from the Luxembourg Income Study, results suggest that inequality at the top end of the distribution is positively associated with growth, while inequality lower down the distribution is negatively related to subsequent growth. These findings highlight potential limitations of an exploration of the impact of income distribution on growth using a single inequality statistic. Such specifications may capture an average effect of inequality on growth, and mask the underlying complexity of the relationship.     

IRELAND's INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

There are concerns that the unprecedented economic boom which Ireland experienced in the second half of the 1990s has raised only some living standards and has widened income gaps. This paper analyzes Ireland's income distribution in comparative perspective, to understand how Ireland's distribution changed and how it compares to other rich countries. We begin with OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data to compare Ireland's degree of well-being and inequality with other advanced countries. We also look in some detail at alternative sources of Irish income and their implications for the trends in income inequality in Ireland from 1994 to 2000. For instance, we examine the top of the distribution using data from the administration of the income tax system. We conclude that the spectacular economic growth in the past decade has seen the gap in average income between Ireland and the richer OECD countries narrow dramatically. However, this growth has not greatly affected the Irish ranking in terms of income inequality. Ireland remains an outlier among rich European nations in its high degree of income inequality, though still falling well short of the level seen in the United States. In the end, we find that Ireland's new-found prosperity provides a "social dividend," and choices about how it is used will fundamentally affect whether the current high level of income inequality persists into the future.     

Measuring Income Inequality in Euroland

In this paper we propose an aggregate measure of income inequality for the founding countries of the European Monetary Union. Applying the methodology of the Theil index we are able to derive a measure for Euroland as a whole by using complementary data from the European Community Household Panel and the Luxembourg Income Study. The property of additive decomposability allows us to determine each country's contribution as well as that of each demographic group to overall income inequality. In addition the impact of government transfers on this inequality measure is assessed.     

Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross‐Country Study

This paper uses data from the Luxembourg Income Study to examine some of the forces that have driven changes in household income inequality over the last three decades of the twentieth century. We decompose inequality for six countries (Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.) into the three sources of market income (earnings, property income, and income from self‐employment) and taxes and transfers. Our findings indicate that although changes in the distribution of earnings are an important force behind recent trends, they are not the only one. Greater earnings dispersion has in some cases been accompanied by a reduction in the share of earnings which dampened its impact on overall household income inequality. In some countries the contribution of self‐employment income to inequality has been on the rise, while in others, increases in inequality in capital income account for a substantial fraction of the observed distributional changes.     

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF EARNINGS INEQUALITY FOR MEN IN THE 1980s

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of earnings inequality during the 1980s among prime age men who headed households and worked year-round, full-time from five industrialized countries-Canada, Sweden, Australia, West Germany, and the United States. The data were obtained from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database, a multinational collection of microdata sets from various countries which have been assembled for the primary purpose of making cross-national comparisons of economic and social well-being. The results of the comparison indicated that during the mid-1980s, the United States had the most unequal distribution of earnings and Sweden the least unequal. Between the early 1980s and mid-1980s, however, the earnings distributions in all five countries showed evidence of becoming more unequal, especially in the United States, Canada, and Sweden.     

The impact of unemployment on inequality and poverty in OECD countries

The purpose of this research is to examine the contribution of unemployment to income inequality and poverty in various OECD countries. These relationships have been explored using Luxembourg Income Study micro-data. Considerable differences across OECD countries are revealed through the use of within-household unemployment distributions. These differences help to explain most of the observed divergences in the relationship between unemployment and income distribution, in conjunction with the heterogeneous influence of social benefits on the economic position of the unemployed in these countries. A sub-group decomposition analysis corroborates the limited effect of unemployment on income distribution in most of the considered countries. However, it seems clear that the unemployed are among those with the highest risk of experiencing poverty.
JEL classification: D31, I32, J31.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTION AND REDISTRIBUTION: A MICRODATA ANALYSIS FOR SEVEN COUNTRIES

This paper reports the detailed results of a comparison of the distribution and redistribution of income in seven countries using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database. Use of LIS facilitates comparisons of inequality in respect to similarly-defined variables, permits methodological alternatives to be used, and allows the countries to be compared on aspects of income ranking and policy equity in ways not otherwise possible.
The results indicate a pattern of inequality in which Sweden is the most equal, followed by Norway, the U.K. and Canada, while among the less equal countries Israel is generally more equal than Germany-or the USA., whose relative inequality depends on the measure chosen. Use of the LIS database also allows a more detailed explanation of these results, noting, for example, the role of cash benefits in increasing equality in Sweden and the U.K., and in aiding the bottom quintile in Germany; and the important part played by self-employment income in contributing to the high top quintile shares in Germany and Israel, and in rendering the Norwegian distribution less equal than that of its Scandinavian neighbour.
The wealth of the database, however, means that methodological issues need to be treated both more explicitly and more carefully than is possible with more restrictive data. To interpret the data also requires a considerable degree of knowledge about the institutional features of tax and social provisions in each country, so that an income microdatabase could usefully be completed by one focused on the details of such provisions.     

EQUIVALENCE SCALES, WELL-BEING, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY: SENSITIVITY ESTIMATES ACROSS TEN COUNTRIES USING THE LUXEMBOURG INCOME STUDY (LIS) DATABASE

The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database on which this article is based offers researchers exciting new possibilities for international comparisons based on household income microdata. Among the choices the LIS microdata allows a researcher, e.g. income definition, income accounting unit, etc., is the choice of family equivalence scale, a method for estimating economic well-being by adjusting income for measurable differences in need.
The range of potential equivalence scales that can and are being used in the ten LIS countries and elsewhere to adjust incomes for size and related differences in need span a wide spectrum. The purpose of this paper is to review the available equivalence scales and to test the sensitivity of various income inequality and poverty measures to choice of equivalence scale using the LIS database. The results of our analysis indicate that choice of equivalence scale can sometimes systematically affect absolute and relative levels of poverty; and inequality and therefore rankings of countries (or population subgroups within countries). Because of these sensitivities, one must carefully consider summary statements and policy implications derived from cross-national comparisons of poverty and/or inequality.     

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.     

RELATIVE INEQUALITY AND POVERTY IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES USING ALTERNATIVE EQUIVALENCE SCALES

We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study to show the sensitivity of measures of relative economic well-being of persons in the U.S. and Germany using official equivalence scales and consumption-based country-specific equivalence scales developed for the two countries. Overall inequality and poverty levels are found not to be sensitive to the equivalence scale used. However, the official German equivalence scale yields quite different results from the others with respect to the relative income and poverty levels of vulnerable groups within the population, especially older single people.     

Imputed Rent and Income Inequality: A Decomposition Analysis for Great Britain, West Germany and the U.S.

This article deals with income advantages derived from owner-occupied housing and their impact on the personal income distribution. Using micro-data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS), the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), and the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) we find distinct cross-national differences in terms of the prevalence and extent of imputed rent. Results from inequality decomposition analyses show this overall impact to be the net effect of two conflicting changes: On the one hand there is increasing income inequality between the groups of owneroccupiers and renters, respectively, and, on the other hand, we find inequality to be decreasing within the group of those owner-occupiers who own outright. When focussing on imputed rent as a means of old-age provision, our results for all three countries show an income advantage for, as well as a poverty reducing effect among the elderly. The empirical findings support the claim for the need of an improved harmonization of this non-cash income component especially for the purpose of cross-national comparative research.     

A comparison of the poverty impact of transfers, taxes and market income across five OECD countries

This paper compares the poverty reduction impact of income sources, taxes and transfers across five OECD countries. Since the estimation of that impact can depend on the order in which the various income sources are introduced into the analysis, it is done by using the Shapley value. Estimates of the poverty reduction impact are presented in a normalized and unnormalized fashion, in order to take into account the total as well as the per dollar impacts. The methodology is applied to data from the Luxembourg Income Study database.     

THE SENSITIVITY OF INTERNATIONAL POVERTY COMPARISONS

Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, I study the sensitivity of cross-national income poverty comparisons to the method in which poverty is measured. Absolute poverty comparisons that keep the purchasing power at the poverty line constant across countries lead to conclusions that differ from relative poverty comparisons in which the real value of the poverty line varies with average income. The absolute poverty ranking of countries also varies as the real value of the poverty line is lowered. Cross-national differences in household characteristics are largely irrelevant in explaining poverty differences.     

COMPARATIVE WELL-BEING OF CHILDREN AND ELDERLY

This paper compares the economic well-being of children and the elderly to each other in the United States and across six industrialized countries. Using the Luxembourg Income Study database, we find that U.S. children–whose economic status is measured by their family income–are generally worse off than U.S. elderly in terms of both poverty and adjusted mean income. Moreover, U.S. children are worse off in terms of higher poverty rates than are the children in any of the other countries studied. The paper presents a variety of explanations for these differences.     

POVERTY, TNEQUALTTY, AND FAMTLY LIVING STANDARDS IMPACTS ACROSS SEVEN NATIONS: THE EFFECT OF NONCASH SUBSIDIES FOR HEALTH, EDUCATION AND HOUSING

The main aim of this paper has been to summarize the impact of noncash income–health and health education benefits, and imputed rent-on living standards, income distribution and poverty in seven nations at the beginning of the 1980s using the Luxembourg Income Study database. Our results do not give rise to a pattern of national differences in poverty rates or income inequality which are markedly different from that which emerges from previous LIS research based on cash income alone. While these results may be sensitive to the techniques used to measure and value noncash benefits in this paper, it appears that noncash income reinforces the redistributive impact or conventional (cash) tax-transfer mechanisms rather than acting to offset them in any major way.     

Top Income Adjustments and Inequality: An Investigation of the EU-SILC†

This paper provides a novel assessment of how the World Inequality Database (WID) top income adjustment applied by Blanchet, Chancel, and Gethin (2021) to European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data for 26 countries over 2003–2017 for Distributional National Accounts purposes affects inequality in equivalized gross and disposable household income. On average, the Gini is increased by around 2.4 points for both gross and disposable income, with notable differences across countries but limited impact on trends. EU-SILC countries that rely on administrative register data see relatively small effects on inequality. Comparing with two other recent studies, differences in impacts on measured inequality depend less on the adjustment method and more on whether external data sources are used.     

Taxation Reform and Income Distribution in Australia

This article contains an analysis of the effects of changes in the existing tax mix on the distribution of income in Australia. Shifts from direct to indirect taxes, similar to ‘Option C’ in the Government's Draft White Paper on tax reform, are considered. The general equilibrium effects of the policy changes are analysed using an extended version of the ORANI model of the Australian economy. The Shorrocks I₀ index is then used to identify the sources of inequality in the pre- and post-change distributions. The results are based on data from the ABS Income and Housing Survey for 1981–82.     

Measuring the Consistency of Cross‐Sectional and Longitudinal Income Information in EU‐SILC

The EU‐wide survey “Statistics on Income and Living Conditions” (EU‐SILC) is extremely important for international social science research and policy advice. It is therefore crucial to ensure that the data are of the highest quality and international comparability. This paper is aimed at identifying unexpected developments in income levels, income mobility, and inequality in the EU‐SILC data between 2005 and 2009. We examine the consistency of EU‐SILC by comparing cross‐sectional results with findings based on two‐year longitudinal samples. Although the data represent similar populations, for several countries the results of this comparison differ widely. One important outcome is the high degree of variability over time in countries that obtain their income information from register data. This suggests methodological challenges in the clear designation of new subsample members, in the reweighting of the data, in imputation of missing values, and in other areas.