Taxation and the worlds of welfare

Prasad, Monica; Deng, Yingying

doi:10.1093/ser/mwq008

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 11 publications

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“…However, redistributive policies in advanced countries are not necessarily progressive. For example, Prasad and Deng (2009) find that income and property taxes tend to be regressive in social democratic countries. 2.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of democracy, government ideology, and globalization on social spending in less developed countries

2015

International Journal of Comparative Sociology

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This study examines how democracy, government ideology, and globalization have shaped social expenditures in 67 less developed countries from 1975 to 2005. The empirical results show that more democratic nations spend a greater amount on social security and welfare (SSW), while leftist governments spend more on education. This is because, in most less developed nations, SSW programs disproportionately benefit formalsector workers, who tend to be the decisive voters in the countries, and education spending helps a broader spectrum of people. The article also examines factors related to globalization and finds that a higher level of external debt is strongly associated with reduced SSW spending, which imposes direct costs and burdens to business. The results in this article provide evidence that, even in less developed countries, political leaders' commitment to social expenditures varies according to their electoral, ideological, and economic interests.

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of democracy, government ideology, and globalization on social spending in less developed countries

2015

International Journal of Comparative Sociology

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Fiscal Impoverishment in Rich Democracies

Schechtl,

O’Brien

2023

Social Forces

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This article introduces fiscal impoverishment as a framework for comparative poverty research. We invert standard analyses of welfare state policy and household poverty by focusing not on poverty alleviation but poverty creation and exacerbation. Using harmonized household survey data, we show how the income and payroll taxes most rich countries rely on to finance the public sector serve to push households (further) into poverty. We estimate that across rich democracies on average about one in four households in poverty are made poorer on net after taxes and transfers; with fiscal impoverishment levels ranging from <10% in some countries to more than 70% in others, revealing extreme cross-national variation in how the pocketbooks of poor households are impacted by national tax and transfer policy. We go on to show that fiscal impoverishment does not track with standard measures of welfare state generosity but is instead largely determined by design of income tax systems, particularly a country’s relative reliance on (regressive) payroll taxes versus (progressive) income taxes. We consider the implications of fiscal impoverishment for assessing welfare state performance and for comparative poverty research.

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Where Income Becomes Wealth: How Redistribution Moderates the Association between Income and Wealth

Schechtl,

Waitkus

2024

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

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The authors study the role of redistributive policy in comparative research on the determinants of wealth. The authors argue that public redistribution affects the level of net wealth by moderating the household-level association of income and wealth. Drawing on microdata for 14 countries from the Luxembourg Wealth Study, and spending and revenue data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the authors use ordinary least squares models with country fixed effects. The authors find a positive moderation effect of social spending and a negative moderation effect of income taxation. Higher and lower labor incomes translate into higher and lower levels of wealth where income taxation is lower or social spending is higher. The authors complement these findings with panel information from the United States, providing further evidence supporting the cross-national results. In summary, public redistribution partially accounts for differences in the association of income and wealth across countries. The authors urge future research on the correlation of income and wealth to take public redistribution into account.

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Taxation and the worlds of welfare

Cited by 5 publications

References 11 publications

The impact of democracy, government ideology, and globalization on social spending in less developed countries

The impact of democracy, government ideology, and globalization on social spending in less developed countries

Fiscal Impoverishment in Rich Democracies

Where Income Becomes Wealth: How Redistribution Moderates the Association between Income and Wealth

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