Fiscal policy is a key tool for achieving distributional objectives in advanced economies. This paper embeds the discussion of fiscal redistribution within the standard social welfare framework, which lends itself to a transparent and practical evaluation of the extent and determinants of fiscal redistribution. Differences in fiscal redistribution are decomposed into differences in the magnitude of transfers (fiscal effort) and in the progressivity of transfers (fiscal progressivity). Fiscal progressivity is further decomposed into differences in the distribution of transfers across income groups (targeting performance) and in the social welfare returns to targeting due to varying initial levels of income inequality (targeting returns). This decomposition provides a clear distinction between the concepts of progressivity and targeting, and clarifies the relationship between them. For illustrative purposes, the framework is applied to data for 28 EU countries to determine the factors explaining differences in their fiscal redistribution and to discuss patterns in fiscal redistribution highlighted in the literature.

This book measures in details the department income distribution pattern among the governments, enterprises, and families in China during the years of 1978–2008; it measures and analyzes the distribution of Chinese factor income and residents’ income. In combination with Chinese taxation system and policy, it makes a deep research on the effect of factor income distribution on residents’ income distribution, the effect of taxation on factor income distribution, and the effect of taxation on residents’ income distribution. This book is favorable for answering why taxation’s regulation effect on income distribution in China is low, and why taxation reform is necessary.

Taxing Wages provides unique information on income tax paid and social security contributions levied on an average worker and their employers in OECD countries. In addition, this annual publication specifies family benefits paid as cash transfers ...

Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy has been held up as a model of successful development in a globalized world, offering lessons for other late developing countries. It interrogates the principal theoretical approaches which have been used to analyze the Celtic Tiger, particularly neo-classical economics, and finds them inadequate to capture its ambiguities or address its developmental deficit. Elaborating an alternative approach, drawing particularly on the work of Karl Polanyi, the book offers an interpretation which captures more fully the ways in which the Irish State has made itself subservient to market forces. The options now facing Irish society are mapped out through a critical examination of globalization, identifying possibilities for development and social action.

Since the first edition there have been fundamental changes in the Irish growth model. The sudden collapse of the Irish economy in 2008 raises questions such as: why the sudden and deep decline in economic growth? What are the prospects for a return to growth? Answering these questions and more, this book is the definitive work on the Celtic Tiger.