Fiscal policy and income redistribution in Latin America: Challenging the conventional wisdom

By: Nora Lustig (Commitment to Equity Initiative (CEQ), Inter-American Dialogue and Tulane University)

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2011-227&r=ltv

Conventional wisdom states that fiscal policy redistributes little in Latin America. Lower tax revenues and – above all – lower and less progressive transfers have been identified as the main cause. Existing studies show that, while in Europe the distribution of all transfers combined (cash and in-kind) is egalitarian, the bulk of transfers in Latin America accrue to the upper quintile. Through an in-depth fiscal incidence analysis applied to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and Peru we argue that conventional wisdom may be wrong. First, the extent and effectiveness of income redistribution and poverty reduction, revenue-collection, and spending patterns vary so significantly across countries that speaking of ?Latin America? as a unity is misleading. The (after direct taxes and transfers) Gini, for example, declines by over 10 percent in Argentina but by only 2.4 percent in Bolivia. In Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia government revenues are close to 40 percent of GDP, whereas in Mexico and Peru they are around 20 percent. Social spending (excluding contributory pensions) as a share of GDP ranges from 17 percent in Brazil to 5.2 percent in Peru. Second, social spending does not accrue to the richest quintile. On the contrary, concentration coefficients for social spending are highly negative (progressive in absolute terms) for Argentina and slightly so for Bolivia and Mexico. In Brazil and Peru social spending is progressive in relative terms only. Third, there is no obvious correlation between the size of government and the size of social spending, on the one hand, and the extent and effectiveness of redistribution, on the other: government size is similar for Argentina and Bolivia but they are on opposite sides in terms of the extent of redistribution. Fourth, due to indirect taxes households are net payers to the ?fisc? beginning in the third decile in Bolivia and Brazil; for Argentina, Mexico and Peru this happens in the fifth decile. Fifth, corrective measures differ too: in Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil they may involve the reduction in revenues and total spending, while revenues and social spending (especially direct transfers to the poor) should be increased in Mexico and Peru. Bolivia and Brazil need to introduce changes to their tax and transfer system so that net payers to the ?fisc? start at higher incomes. All five countries need to improve the progressivity of their spending, including non-social spending components.
Keywords: fiscal incidence, fiscal policy, inequality, poverty, redistribution, social policy, taxes, transfers; Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and Peru
JEL: D63

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The Future of Work in Europe

By: Christopher Pissarides

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:354&r=ltv

Employment in the European Union is still falling short of the objectives set by the continent’s leaders more than 10 years ago. Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides explains why Europe remains behind the United States in job creation, particularly in business services and the health and education sectors.

Minimum Wage Increases Under Straightened Circumstances

By: Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina)
Blackburn, McKinley L. (University of South Carolina)
Cotti, Chad (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh)

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6036&r=ltv

Do apparently large minimum wage increases in an environment of recession produce clearer evidence of disemployment effects than is typically observed in the new minimum wage literature? This paper augments the sparse literature on the most recent increases in the U.S. minimum wage, using three different data sets and the two main estimation strategies for handling geographically-disparate trends. The evidence is generally unsupportive of negative employment effects, still less of a ‘recessionary multiplier.’ Minimum wage workers seem to be concentrated in sectors of the economy for which the labor demand response to wage mandates is minimal.
Keywords: minimum wages, disemployment, earnings, low-wage sectors, geographically-disparate employment trends, recession
JEL: J2