Skip Navigation



Socio-Economic Review Advance Access published online on March 1, 2006
Socio-Economic Review, doi:10.1093/ser/mwl003
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
4/3/483    most recent
mwl003v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Mahler, V. A.
Right arrow Articles by Jesuit, D. K.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Article

Fiscal redistribution in the developed countries: new insights from the Luxembourg Income Study1

Vincent A. Mahler 1 * and David K. Jesuit 2

1 Department of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL 60626, USA
2 Department of Political Science, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Vincent A. Mahler, E-mail: vmahler{at}luc.edu


  Abstract

This paper offers a detailed discussion of fiscal redistribution in developed countries, employing data that have been computed from the LIS's micro-level database. LIS data are detailed enough to allow us not only to measure overall redistribution but also to explore whether redistribution has been achieved primarily through taxes or transfers; to determine whether it is associated with the size or the internal target efficiency of social benefits; to compare the redistributive effect of the most important individual transfers; to focus separately on households in poverty and those headed by persons of working age; and to explore trends in redistribution between the late 1970s and early 2000s. The paper concludes by demonstrating the practical usefulness of the data presented by conducting an empirical analysis of several proposed explanations for cross-country and over-time variance in fiscal redistribution.

Keywords: Luxembourg Income Study; redistributing income; fiscal redistribution; disposable income; Gini index.
1 Vincent A. Mahler is Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of Dependency Approaches to International Political Economy (Columbia University Press) and author or co-author of articles in International Organization, The American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Polity and other journals and edited collections. David K. Jesuit is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Central Michigan University. Previously, he was the Project Manager and Senior Research Associate of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), a non-profit association located in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. He is the author or co-author of articles in Socio-Economic Review, European Union Politics, Comparative Political Studies, The Journal of Poverty and other journals and edited collections.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.