[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hdl/wpaper/1502.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A birdÂ’’s eye view on 20 years of tax-benefit reforms in Belgium

Author

Listed:
  • André Decoster
  • Serio Perelman
  • Dieter Vandelannoote
  • Toon Vanheukelom
  • Gerlinde Verbist
Abstract
Belgium has seen major changes in its tax-benefit system over the past twenty years. These changes have, to a large extent, co-determined the evolution of disposable incomes of Belgian households on one hand, and their incentives to work on the other. In this paper we assess equity and efficiency aspects of changes in tax-benefit policies over the full course of 1992-2012. By simulating effects of current and past tax-benefit policies using the microsimulation model MEFISTO-EUROMOD, we summarize the shifts in policy orientation over this period using two summary measures of redistribution and work incentives. Our three main findings are: 1) the changes in the tax-benefit system have to a large extent been pro-poor and redistribution has been increased; 2) the introduction of an earned income tax credit and the lowering of personal income taxes has contributed to improve work incentives, but this effect was partially eroded by an increase in unemployment benefits since 2000; 3) the results crucially depend on whether one chooses as ‘no policy change’ counterfactual indexation with inflation or indexation with nominal wage growth.

Suggested Citation

  • André Decoster & Serio Perelman & Dieter Vandelannoote & Toon Vanheukelom & Gerlinde Verbist, 2015. "A birdÂ’’s eye view on 20 years of tax-benefit reforms in Belgium," Working Papers 1502, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    • Handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2453/files/CSB%20WP%202015/CSB_WP_15_02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Bargain & Tim Callan, 2010. "Analysing the effects of tax-benefit reforms on income distribution: a decomposition approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(1), pages 1-21, March.
    2. François Bourguignon & Amedeo Spadaro, 2006. "Microsimulation as a tool for evaluating redistribution policies," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 4(1), pages 77-106, April.
    3. Browning, Edgar K, 1976. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 283-298, April.
    4. Frank Vandenbroucke, 2012. "The Active Welfare State Revisited," Working Papers 1209, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    5. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    6. Herwig Immervoll & Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Emmanuel Saez, 2007. "Welfare reform in European countries: a microsimulation analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(516), pages 1-44, January.
    7. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    8. Kakwani, Nanok C, 1977. "Measurement of Tax Progressivity: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 87(345), pages 71-80, March.
    9. Stuart Adam & James Browne, 2010. "Redistribution, work incentives and thirty years of UK tax and benefit reform," IFS Working Papers W10/24, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Emmanuel Saez, 2002. "Optimal Income Transfer Programs: Intensive versus Extensive Labor Supply Responses," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 1039-1073.
    11. Bev Dahlby, 2008. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds: Theory and Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262042509, April.
    12. Hansson, Ingemar & Stuart, Charles, 1985. "Tax revenue and the marginal cost of public funds in Sweden," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 331-353, August.
    13. David Carey, 2003. "Tax Reform in Belgium," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 354, OECD Publishing.
    14. Browning, Edgar K & Johnson, William R, 1984. "The Trade-Off between Equality and Efficiency," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 175-203, April.
    15. Richard Blundell & Andrew Shephard, 2012. "Employment, Hours of Work and the Optimal Taxation of Low-Income Families," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 481-510.
    16. Bev Dahlby, 2011. "The marginal cost of public funds and the flypaper effect," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(3), pages 304-321, June.
    17. Mayshar, Joram, 1990. "On measures of excess burden and their application," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 263-289, December.
    18. Tom Clark & Andrew Leicester, 2004. "Inequality and two decades of British tax and benefit reform," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 25(2), pages 129-158, June.
    19. Stuart Adam, 2005. "Measuring the marginal efficiency cost of redistribution in the UK," IFS Working Papers W05/14, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Dahlby, Bev, 1998. "Progressive taxation and the social marginal cost of public funds," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 105-122, January.
    21. Federico Cingano, 2014. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diego Collado & Bea Cantillon & Karel Van den Bosch & Tim Goedemé & Dieter Vandelannoote, 2016. "The end of cheap talk about poverty reduction: the cost of closing the poverty gap while maintaining work incentives," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/08, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    2. H. Xavier Jara & Katrin Gasior & Mattia Makovec, 2020. "Work Incentives at the Extensive and Intensive Margin in Europe: The Role of Taxes, Benefits and Population Characteristics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 705-778, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Verbist, Gerlinde & Vandelannoote, Dieter & Decoster, André & Perelman, Sergio & Vanheukelom, Toon, 2015. "A bird’s eye view on 20 years of tax-benefit reforms in Belgium," EUROMOD Working Papers EM10/15, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    2. Mickaël Beaud & Thierry Blayac & Patrice Bougette & Soufiane Khoudmi & Philippe Mahenc & Stéphane Mussard, 2013. "Estimation du coût d'opportunité des fonds publics pour l'économie française," Working Papers halshs-01077141, HAL.
    3. Alari Paulus & Holly Sutherland & Iva Tasseva, 2020. "Indexing Out of Poverty? Fiscal Drag and Benefit Erosion in Cross‐National Perspective," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(2), pages 311-333, June.
    4. André Decoster & Sergio Perelman & Dieter Vandelannoote & Toon Vanheukelom & Gerlinde Verbist, 2019. "Which way the pendulum swings? Equity and efficiency of three decades of tax-benefit reforms in Belgium," Working Papers 1907, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    5. Thor O. Thoresen & Zhiyang Jia & Peter J. Lambert, 2013. "Distributional benchmarking in tax policy evaluations," Discussion Papers 765, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    6. Thor O. Thoresen & Zhiyang Jia & Peter J. Lambert, 2016. "Is there More Redistribution Now? A Review of Methods for Evaluating Tax Redistributional Effects," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 72(3), pages 302-333, September.
    7. Fischer, Benjamin & Jessen, Robin & Steiner, Viktor, 2019. "Work incentives and the cost of redistribution via tax-transfer reforms under constrained labor supply," Discussion Papers 2019/10, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    8. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Kreiner, Claus Thustrup, 2006. "The marginal cost of public funds: Hours of work versus labor force participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1955-1973, November.
    10. Löffler, Max & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian & Sommer, Eric, 2014. "Documentation IZA?MOD v3.0: The IZA Policy Simulation Model," IZA Discussion Papers 8553, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Eissa, Nada & Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Kreiner, Claus Thustrup, 2008. "Evaluation of four tax reforms in the United States: Labor supply and welfare effects for single mothers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 795-816, April.
    12. Bas Jacobs, 2018. "The marginal cost of public funds is one at the optimal tax system," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 883-912, August.
    13. Figari Francesco & Gandullia Luca & Lezzi Emanuela, 2018. "Marginal Cost of Public Funds: From the Theory to the Empirical Application for the Evaluation of the Efficiency of the Tax-Benefit Systems," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Dieter Vandelannoote & Gerlinde Verbist, 2016. "The design of in-work benefits: how to boost employment and combat poverty in Belgium," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/15, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    15. Nathaniel Hendren, 2016. "The Policy Elasticity," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 51-89.
    16. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Claus Thustrup Kreiner, 2003. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds in OECD Countries. Hours of Work Versus Labor Force Participation," CESifo Working Paper Series 935, CESifo.
    17. Figari, Francesco & Paulus, Alari & Sutherland, Holly, 2014. "Microsimulation and policy analysis," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-23, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    18. Stuart Adam, 2005. "Measuring the marginal efficiency cost of redistribution in the UK," IFS Working Papers W05/14, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Colombino Ugo & Locatelli Marilena & Narazani Edlira & O'Donoghue Cathal, 2010. "Alternative Basic Income Mechanisms: An Evaluation Exercise With a Microeconometric Model," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, September.
    20. John Hills & Alari Paulus & Holly Sutherland & Iva Tasseva, 2014. "A lost decade? Decomposing the effect of 2001-11 tax-benefit policy changes on the income distribution in EU countries," ImPRovE Working Papers 14/03, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labour supply; marginal cost of public funds; microsimulation; redistribution; tax-benefit system; taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1502. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Santiago Burone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csbuabe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.