IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00160174.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Proportional income taxation and effective progressivity

Author

Listed:
  • Udo Ebert
  • Patrick Moyes

    (GREThA - Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

When incomes are exogenously given, a progressive tax structure reduces inequality in the sense that the Lorenz curve of after tax incomes is nowhere below that of before tax incomes whatever the circumstances as it was shown by U. Jakobsson (Journal of Public Economics 5 (1976), 161-168) The relevance of this standard result is however seriously limited since real-world incomes are determined by the working decisions of the agents in the economy. The paper aims at investigating the implications for effective progression of relaxing the assumption of exogenous incomes when individuals have the same preferences but different talents. We first extend the standard result to the case where agents' working decisions are fully taken into account and we conclude that it is generally impossible to disentangle the respective contributions to inequality reduction of the tax schedule and agents' preferences. We next demonstrate that an elasticity of labour supply which is non-decreasing in productivities is both necessary and sufficient for a proportional tax schedule to result in less unequally distributed incomes. Journal of Economic Literature
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Udo Ebert & Patrick Moyes, 2003. "Proportional income taxation and effective progressivity," Post-Print hal-00160174, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00160174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jorge Onrubia & Rafael Salas & José Sanz, 2005. "Redistribution and labour supply," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(2), pages 109-124, August.
    2. Seade, J. K., 1977. "On the shape of optimal tax schedules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 203-235, April.
    3. Fellman, J, 1976. "The Effect of Transformations on Lorenz Curves," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 823-824, July.
    4. Kakwani, Nanak C, 1977. "Applications of Lorenz Curves in Economic Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(3), pages 719-727, April.
    5. Ebert, Udo, 1992. "A reexamination of the optimal nonlinear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 47-73, October.
    6. Tuomala, Matti, 1984. "On the optimal income taxation : Some further numerical results," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 351-366, April.
    7. Stern, N. H., 1976. "On the specification of models of optimum income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 123-162.
    8. Eichhorn, Wolfgang & Funke, Helmut & Richter, Wolfram F., 1984. "Tax progression and inequality of income distribution," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 127-131, October.
    9. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    10. Moyes Patrick, 1994. "Inequality Reducing and Inequality Preserving Transformations of Incomes: Symmetric and Individualistic Transformations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 271-298, August.
    11. Jakobsson, Ulf, 1976. "On the measurement of the degree of progression," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1-2), pages 161-168.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vincenzo Prete & Alessandro Sommacal & Claudio Zoli, 2016. "Optimal Non-Welfarist Income Taxation for Inequality and Polarization Reduction," Working Papers 23/2016, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    2. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Llavador, Humberto, 2018. "Inequality reducing properties of progressive income tax schedules: the case of endogenous income," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), January.
    3. Moyes, Patrick, 2003. "Redistributive effects of minimal equal sacrifice taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 111-140, January.
    4. Tymon Słoczyński, 2012. "Zastosowanie zasady równych ofiar do oceny sprawiedliwości taryfy podatku dochodowego od osób fizycznych (PIT) w Polsce," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 10, pages 23-47.
    5. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2022. "A synthesis of local and effective tax progressivity measurement," MPRA Paper 115180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Patrick Moyes & Alain Trannoy, 1999. "Le quotient familial : une structure fiscale cohérente avec le critère de Lorenz relatif," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 138(2), pages 111-124.
    7. Satya R. Chakravarty & Palash Sarkar, 2022. "Inequality minimising subsidy and taxation," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 10(1), pages 53-67, May.
    8. Claudio Zoli, 2018. "A Note on Progressive Taxation and Inequality Equivalence," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality, Taxation and Intergenerational Transmission, volume 26, pages 15-33, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Humberto Llavador, 2021. "Elasticity determinants of inequality-reducing income taxation," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(1), pages 163-183, March.
    10. Higgins, Sean & Lustig, Nora, 2016. "Can a poverty-reducing and progressive tax and transfer system hurt the poor?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 63-75.
    11. repec:zbw:hohpro:331 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Gravel, Nicolas & Poitevin, Michel, 2006. "The progressivity of equalization payments in federations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1725-1743, September.
    13. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Humberto Llavador, 2021. "Inequality, Bipolarization, and Tax Progressivity," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 492-513, November.
    14. Biung-Ghi Ju & Juan Moreno-Ternero, 2008. "On the equivalence between progressive taxation and inequality reduction," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(4), pages 561-569, May.
    15. Udo Ebert, 2011. "The redistribution of income when needs differ," Working Papers V-331-11, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2011.
    16. repec:old:wpaper:331 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Hayes, Kathy J. & Lambert, Peter J. & Slottje, Daniel J., 1995. "Evaluating effective income tax progression," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 461-474, March.
    18. Jorge Onrubia Fernández & María del Carmen Rodado Ruiz, 2015. "oGravamen individual o grupal en el IRPF? Una valoración desde la movilidad distributiva," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2015-01, FEDEA.
    19. Louis Kaplow, 2005. "Why measure inequality?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(1), pages 65-79, April.
    20. Kleiber, Christian, 2005. "The Lorenz curve in economics and econometrics," Technical Reports 2005,30, Technische Universität Dortmund, Sonderforschungsbereich 475: Komplexitätsreduktion in multivariaten Datenstrukturen.
    21. Peter J. Lambert, 2004. "Income Taxation and Equity," Working Papers 2004/4, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    22. Dardanoni, Valentino & Lambert, Peter J., 2002. "Progressivity comparisons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 99-122, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00160174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.