To what extent do fiscal regimes equalize opportunities for income acquisition among citizens?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Roemer, JE; Aaberge, R; Colombino, U; Fritzell, J; Jenkins, SP; Lefranc, A; Marx, I; Page, M; Pommer, E; Ruiz-Castillo, J; San Segundo, MJ; Tranaes, T; Trannoy, A; Wagner, GG; Zubiri, I
• 署名单位: Yale University; Statistics Norway; University of Turin; Stockholm University; University of Essex; CY Cergy Paris Universite; University of Antwerp; University of California System; University of California Davis; Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Leibniz Association; DIW Berlin - Deutsches Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung; University of Basque Country
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00145-1
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 539-565
• 关键词: fiscal regimes; equal opportunities; income acquisition

摘要

This paper employs the theory of equality of opportunity, described in Roemer's book (Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press, 1998), to compute the extent to which tax-and-transfer regimes in I I countries equalize opportunities among citizens for income acquisition. Roughly speaking, equality of opportunity for incomes has been achieved in a country when it is the case that the distributions of post-fisc income are the same for different types of citizen, where a citizen's type is defined by the socio-economic status of his parents. Intuitively, a country will have equalized opportunity if the chances of earning high (or low) income are equal for citizens from all family backgrounds. Of course, pre-fisc income distributions, by type, will not be identical, as long as the educational system does not entirely make up for the disadvantage that children, who come from poor families face, but the tax-and-transfer system can play a role in rectifying that inequality. We include, in our computation, two numbers that summarize the extent to which each country's current fiscal regime achieves equalization of opportunities for income, and the deadweight loss that would be incurred by moving to the regime that does. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.