Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/190184 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2018/137
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
This paper evaluates the impacts of combining household surveys with income tax return files, in terms of growth, inequality, and social welfare in Brazil from 2007 to 2015. This exercise holds the promise of adding more realistic top income values to traditional surveys. While the previous literature focused on the impacts of these data combination exercises on income inequality, we assess their cumulative welfare implications. First, as the level of inequality rises when higher top incomes replace previous estimates from surveys, this exercise also increases by construction the mean and social welfare levels. Second, while the movement of these combined estimates presents a slower inequality fall than pure surveys, mean and social welfare growth is seen to have been faster. We are able to reconcile most of the discrepancies between income tax returns, surveys, and GDP growth rates. Finally, the paper analyses the nature and causes of a series of measurement issues - in particular, why exempt incomes drove the growth in income tax returns during this period.
Subjects: 
Top incomes income inequality
personal income tax records
combining data sets
Pareto interpolation
JEL: 
I31
H2
H22
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-579-4
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
497.88 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.