Inequality and Redistribution in France, 1990-2018: Evidence from Post-Tax Distributional National Accounts (DINA)

Antoine Bozio, Bertrand Garbinti, Jonathan Goupille-Lebret, Malka Guillot and Thomas Piketty
Additional contact information
Malka Guillot: PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, WIL - World Inequality Lab, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

PSE Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: This paper presents post-tax Distributional National Accounts (DINA) for France. That is, we combine national accounts, tax and survey data in a comprehensive and consistent manner to build homogenous annual series on the post-tax, post-transfer distribution of national income by percentiles over the 1990-2018 period, with detailed breakdown by age, tax and transfer categories. We come with three main findings. First, taxes and transfers reduce total income inequality (as measured by the ratio between average incomes of the top 10% and bottom 50% groups) by 23% on average in France over this period. This is significant, but less than in the US (34%). The reason why overall inequality is much smaller in France than in the US (more than twice as small, according to this indicator) is entirely due to differences in pretax inequality (themselves due to a complex combination of factors: access to education, wage formation, etc.) rather than in fiscal redistribution. Next, due to the large role of indirect taxes, social contributions, and income capital exemptions, the overall profile of taxation is structurally regressive in France (i.e. very top groups pay lower effective tax rates than groups just below them), a feature that has been reinforced in 2017-2018. Third, monetary transfers benefit mostly older age groups in France, and leave unaffected the low relative position of younger age groups. These series are currently being extended to cover the entire 1900-2018 period and to better take into account in-kind transfers.

Keywords: Inequality; income inequality; inequality measurement; redistribution; France; Post-Tax; Distributional National Accounts (DINA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://pse.hal.science/hal-02878151v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Downloads: (external link)
https://pse.hal.science/hal-02878151v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Inequality and Redistribution in France, 1990-2018: Evidence from Post-Tax Distributional National Accounts (DINA) (2018)
Working Paper: Inequality and Redistribution in France, 1990-2018: Evidence from Post-Tax Distributional National Accounts (DINA) (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:hal-02878151

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().