Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/88427 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 29/2013
Publisher: 
Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE), Berlin
Abstract: 
This paper explores the nexus between the phenomenon of increasing income inequality and redistributive effects of the public sector. In an empirical analysis of seven OECD countries the redistributive effect will be examined by measuring the difference between inequality of market incomes and disposable incomes. Moreover, this paper will try to estimate the redistributive effect of public goods. The period of investigation is between the mid 1980s and the mid 2000s. The paper suggests that the public sector still reduces market income inequality significantly but to a lower extent than in the previous decades and with greater variation across different welfare regimes. Public goods further reduce income inequality considerably. However, the estimation and allocation process of these in-kind benefits involves several methodological issues that need to be taken into account when evaluating the empirical results. Furthermore, the empirical analysis indicates that market forces drove greater income inequality until the mid 1990s, and structural changes in tax and transfer systems reinforced this trend from the mid 1990s onwards.
Subjects: 
income inequality
welfare state
public sector
redistribution
tax and transfer systems
public goods
market and disposable income
JEL: 
H23
H41
H53
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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