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We apply the Kakwani approach to decomposing redistributive effect intoaverage rate, progressivity, and reranking components, using yearly datafrom the United Kingdom covering the period of 1977-2018. We examinecash and in-kind benefits, and direct and indirect taxes. In addition, wehighlight an empirical implementation issue – the definition of the reference(pre-fisc) distribution. Drawing on an innovative counterfactual approach,our empirical analysis shows that trends in the redistributive effect of cashbenefits are largely associated with cyclical changes in average benefit rates.In contrast, trends in the redistributive effects of direct and indirect taxesare mostly associated with changes in progressivity. For in-kind benefits,changes in the average benefit rate and progressivity each played major rolesat different times.

Background: In the Australian state of New South Wales nearly 60,000 approved applicants are waiting for social housing. Future Directions for Social Housing is a response to this challenge. This collection of housing programs aims to provide more social housing, support and incentives for leaving social housing and a better social housing experience. This document presents the protocol of the evaluation of these programs and the overarching Future Directions Strategy. Methods/Design: The evaluation will use a Type 1 effectiveness-implementation hybrid design, with an integrated, dual focus on assessing the effectiveness of Future Directions and better understanding the context for reform implementation. Program effectiveness will be examined using quasi-experimental techniques applied to linked administrative data. The implementation context will be examined via program level data, qualitative interviews and focus groups with stakeholders and tenants. Some quantitative survey and administrative data will also be used. Findings from the implementation evaluation will be used to inform and interpret the effectiveness evaluation. Economic evaluations will also be conducted. Discussion: This methodology will produce a high-quality evaluation of a large, complex government program which aims to facilitate rapid translational gains, real-time adoption of effective implementation strategies and generate actionable insights for policymakers.

This paper examines the direction of welfare-improving income tax reforms in the context of New Zealand, which recently reduced its top marginal income tax rate to one of the lowest in the OECD. A behavioural microsimulation model is used, in which social welfare functions are defined in terms of either money metric utility or net income. The model allows for labour supply responses to tax changes, in which a high degree of population heterogeneity is represented along with the details of the highly complex income tax and transfer system. The implications of the results for specific combinations of tax rate or threshold changes that are both revenue neutral and welfare improving are explored in detail, recognising the role of distributional value judgements. Results suggest, under a wide range of parameter values and assumptions, that raising the highest income tax rate and/or threshold would be part of a welfare-improving reform package.

The share of women in the top 1% of the UK’s income distribution has been growing over the last two decades (as in several other countries). Our first contribution is to account for this trend using regressions of the probability of being in the top 1%, fitted separately for men and women, in order to contrast between the sexes the role of changes in characteristics and changes in returns to characteristics. We show that the rise of women in the top 1% is primarily accounted for by their greater increases in the number of years spent in full-time education. Although most top income analysis uses tax return data, we derive our findings taking advantage of the much more extensive information about personal characteristics that is available in survey data. Our use of survey data requires justification given survey under-coverage of top incomes. Providing this justification is our second contribution.

Many countries impose job search requirements on unemployment benefit recipients. Existing studies have evaluated only incremental changes to requirements. Australian reforms in 1995 saw groups of welfare recipients newly subjected to job search requirements, allowing us to produce the first causal estimates of the total effects of such requirements on welfare receipt. Using a quasi-experimental design and administrative data, we find large negative effects on welfare receipt for the mature-age partnered women targeted by the reforms. We also find large negative effects on welfare receipt of their partners, suggesting family labour supply decisions were considerably affected.

The share of women in the top 1% of the UK’s income distribution has been growing over the last two decades (as in several other countries). Our first contribution is to account for this secular change using regressions of the probability of being in the top 1%, fitted separately for men and women, in order to contrast between the sexes the role of changes in characteristics and changes in returns to characteristics. We show that the rise of women in the top 1% is primarily accounted for by their greater increases (relative to men) in the number of years spent in full-time education. Although most top income analysis uses tax return data, we derive our findings taking advantage of the much more extensive information about personal characteristics that is available in survey data. Our use of survey data requires justification given survey under-coverage of top incomes. Providing this justification is our second contribution.

Female labour force participation has increased tremendously since World War II in developed countries. Prior research provides piecemeal evidence identifying some drivers of change but largely fails to present a consistent story. Using a rare combination of data and modelling capacity available in Australia, we develop a new decomposition approach to explain rising female labour force participation since the mid-1990s. The approach allows us to identify, for the first time, the role of tax and transfer policy reforms as well as three other factors that have been shown to matter by earlier studies. These are (i) changes in real wages, (ii) population composition changes, and (iii) changes in labour supply preference parameters. A key result is that –despite the ongoing emphasis of public policy on improved work incentives for women in Australia and elsewhere– changes in financial incentives due to tax and transfer policy reforms have contributed relatively little to achieve these large increases in participation. Instead, the other three factors drive the increased female labour force participation.

Survey under-coverage of top incomes leads to bias in survey-based estimates of overall income inequality. Using income tax record data in combination with survey data is a potential approach to address the problem; we consider here the UK’s pioneering ‘SPI adjustment’ method that implements this idea. Since 1992, the principal income distribution series (reported annually in Households Below Average Income) has been based on household survey data in which the incomes of a small number of ‘very rich’ individuals are adjusted using information from ‘very rich’ individuals in personal income tax return data. We explain what the procedure involves, reveal the extent to which it addresses survey under-coverage of top incomes, and show how it affects estimates of overall income inequality. More generally, we assess whether the SPI adjustment is fit for purpose and consider whether variants of it could be employed by other countries.

We provide the first systematic comparison of UK inequality estimates derived from tax data (World Wealth and Income Database) and household survey data (the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) subfile of the Family Resources Survey). We document by how much existing survey data underestimate top income shares relative to tax data. Exploiting the flexibility access to unit-record survey data provide, we then derive new top-incomeadjusted data. These data enable us to: better track tax-data-estimated top income shares; change the definitions of income, income-sharing unit, and unit of analysis used and thereby undertake more comparable cross-national comparisons (we provide a UK-US illustration); and examine UK inequality levels and trends using four summary indices. Our estimates reveal a greater rise in the inequality of equivalized gross household income among all persons between the mid-1990s and late-2000s than shown by the corresponding HBAI series, especially between 2004/05 and 2007/08.

This paper describes a simple and tractable method for identifying equivalence scales that reflect the value judgements implicit in a tax and transfer system. The approach depends on two identifying assumptions and a functional description for transfer payments that can be estimated using common publicly available data sources. We use this approach to evaluate tax implicit equivalence scales for the tax-transfer systems of 12 European countries that applied in 2012. Cross-country averages for the tax implicit scales generate a surprising set of stylised results: at low incomes, each additional household member increases the tax implicit scale by approximately 0.5, relative to 1.0 for the first adult; at high incomes, the average tax implicit scales describe variation that is remarkably similar to the modified OECD scale. However, substantial cross-country variation underlies these average scales, suggesting important differences in value judgements implicit in the respective tax-transfer systems; differences that can otherwise be difficult to discern when systems are complex and opaque.

A growing literature uses repeated cross-section surveys to derive ‘synthetic panel’ data estimates of poverty dynamics statistics. It builds on the pioneering study by Dang et al. (‘DLLM’, Journal of Development Economics, 2014) providing bounds estimates and the innovative refinement proposed by Dang and Lanjouw (‘DL’, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6504, 2013) providing point estimates of the statistics of interest. We provide new evidence about the accuracy of synthetic panel estimates relative to benchmarks based on estimates derived from genuine household panel data, employing high quality data from Australia and Britain, while also examining the sensitivity of results to a number of analytical choices. For these two high-income countries we show that DL-method point estimates are distinctly less accurate than estimates derived in earlier validity studies, all of which focus on low- and middle-income countries. We also demonstrate that estimate validity depends on choices such as the age of the household head (defining the sample), the poverty line level, and the years analyzed. DLLM parametric bounds estimates virtually always include the true panel estimates, though the bounds can be wide.

Panel-income changes tend to be equalising but existing approaches provide little insight on the nature of this equalising process. I present a new decomposition framework showing explicitly how the equalising effect of panel-income changes depends on the respective size and distribution of panel-income gains and losses. One of the new insights gained from the application to US data for the 1970/2009 period is that most of the equalising effect occurs through income gains rather than income losses even in times of recession.

A growing literature uses repeated cross-section surveys to derive ‘synthetic panel’ data estimates of poverty dynamics statistics. It builds on the pioneering study by Dang, Lanjouw, Luoto, and McKenzie (Journal of Development Economics, 2014) providing bounds estimates and the innovative refinement proposed by Dang and Lanjouw (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6504, 2013) providing point estimates of the statistics of interest. We provide new evidence about the accuracy of synthetic panel estimates relative to benchmarks based on estimates derived from genuine household panel data, employing high quality data from Australia and Britain, while also examining the sensitivity of results to a number of analytical choices. Overall, we are more agnostic about the validity of the synthetic panel approach applied to these two rich countries than are earlier validity studies in their applications focusing on middle- and low- income countries.

This paper examines the optimal direction of marginal income tax reform in the context of New Zealand, which recently reduced its top marginal income tax rate to one of the lowest in the OECD. A behavioural microsimulation model is used, in which social welfare functions are defined in terms of either money metric utility or net income. The model allows for labour supply responses to tax changes, in which a high degree of population heterogeneity is represented along with all the details of the highly complex income tax and transfer system. The implications of the results for specific combinations of tax rate or threshold changes, that are both revenue neutral and welfare improving, are explored in detail, recognising the role of distributional value judgements in determining an optimal reform. The potential impact of additional income responses is also examined, using the concept of the elasticity of taxable income. Results suggest, under a wide range of parameter values and assumptions, that raising the highest income tax rate and/or threshold, would be part of an optimal reform package.

In this paper, we present two alternative methods of accounting for changes in leisure time in decomposing the inequality effects of tax and transfer policy changes. Three components are identified: tax policy, labour supply responses to tax policy changes and other population effects. The methods are used to decompose inequality changes in Australia between 2001 and 2006. Inequality is first defined in non-welfarist terms as a function of disposable income: the independent judge places no value on leisure. Then, this is modified to allow for evaluations using a weighted geometric mean of disposable income and leisure. This is seen to modify the evaluation of changes in important ways. The results are found to differ from those obtained using a ‘welfarist’ evaluation in terms of money metric utility, where separate labour supply effects cannot be isolated.

Relatively little is known about the dynamics of living in a jobless household at the individual level. We seek to fill this gap by using the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey to estimate a dynamic random effects probit model of household joblessness. We find that state dependence clearly is an important factor in the persistence of household joblessness, as are a number of observed characteristics, while unobserved heterogeneity is also shown to play an important role. Interestingly, the results indicate that the degree of state dependence differs very little between individuals with different characteristics.

In recent decades income inequality has increased in many developed countries but the role of tax and transfer reforms is often poorly understood. We propose a new method allowing for the decomposition of historical changes in income distribution and redistribution measures into: (i) the immediate effect of tax-transfer policy reforms in the absence of behavioral responses; (ii) the effect of labor supply responses induced by these reforms; and (iii) a third component allowing us to explore the effect of changes in the distribution of a wide range of determinants, including the effect of employment changes not induced by policy reforms. The application of the decomposition to Australia reveals that the direct effect of tax-transfer policy reforms accounts for half of the observed increase in income inequality between 1999 and 2008, while the increased dispersion of wages and capital incomes also played an important role.

This paper contributes to the literature by separately analysing the course enrolment and completion effects of vocational education and training (VET) as well as higher education. Moreover, we investigate the persistence of these wage effects over time while controlling for two potential selection biases. We take advantage of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, which contains comprehensive information about completed and uncompleted courses and subsequent labour market outcomes. We find evidence of positive enrolment and completion effects for VET and university courses with important differences by type of course.

Estimates of UK income inequality trends differ substantially according to whether estimates are based on household survey data (used for official statistics) or tax return data (used in the top incomes literature). We reconcile differences in variable definitions and combine survey and tax return data in order to take advantage of the much better coverage of top incomes in the latter, and provide improved estimates of UK inequality trends since the mid-1990s. We show there was a marked increase in income inequality in the early 2000s that survey-based estimates do not reveal, and our conclusions are robust to changes in the definitions of income, income-sharing unit, and summary inequality measure. In addition, our reconciled and combined data provide more comparable estimates of UK-US inequality trends than the top incomes literature to date.

Homelessness not only deprives people of comfort, safety, and dignity but may also cause other problems, including food insecurity. In this study, we use data from the Journeys Home survey, a large national longitudinal survey of disadvantaged Australians who were homeless or at risk of homelessness, to estimate multivariate ordered categorical variable models of the association between homelessness and food insecurity. The Journeys Home survey includes an extensive set of measures of people’s circumstances that we include in our models. We also estimate dummy endogenous variable specifications. All our specifications indicate that homelessness is associated with higher (worse) food insecurity for men. We also find unconditional associations in the same direction for women, but these become statistically insignificant when we include extensive sets of observed controls in our models or estimate dummy endogenous variable specifications. We also investigate how homelessness is related to food consumption, meal consumption, and food expenditures. Food expenditures are negatively associated with homelessness for men in all our specifications; however, the other food outcomes for men and women do not show consistent, statistically significant associations.

Extensive research has shown that few robust results regarding the optimal tax structure are available. Moreover, the stylized models used in optimal tax analyses are not appropriate for practical policy advice. This paper proposes a method of examining income tax reforms designed to move towards an optimal structure. It uses a behavioural microsimulation model in which the full extent of population heterogeneity is represented along with all the details of highly complex tax and transfer systems. The approach is illustrated using the Australian microsimulation model MITTS. The results show that welfare changes for the Australian income tax structure are not symmetric with respect to increases and decreases in tax rates. In addition, the extent of inequality aversion was found to play a much larger role in the determination of the direction of tax rate changes than the form of the welfare metric or the specification of adult equivalence scales. Copyright 2012 Oxford University Press 2011 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.

This paper extends the ‘top-down’ framework developed by Robilliard et al. (2001) to link a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to a microsimulation (MS) model. The proposed approach allows for the linking of an MS model to a dynamic (rather than static) CGE model. The approach relies on altering the sample weights in order to reproduce long-term population projections and changes in employment as estimated by the CGE model. The approach is applied to assess the effects of climate-change mitigation policies in Australia from 2005 to 2030 at five-yearly intervals.

This paper presents a method of predicting individuals' welfare changes (compensating and equivalent variations) arising from a tax or social security policy change in the context of behavioural microsimulation modelling, where individuals can choose between a limited number of discrete hours of work. The method allows fully for the nonlinearity of the budget constraint facing each individual, the probabilistic nature of the labour supply model and the presence of unobserved heterogeneity in the estimation of preference functions. Yet it is relatively straightforward to implement. An advantage of welfare measures, compared with changes in net incomes, is that they take into account the value of leisure and home production. The method is applied to a hypothetical income tax policy change in Australia.

Several approaches have recently been developed to combine a computable general equilibrium model (CGE) and a microsimulation (MS) model. These so-called CGE-MS models enjoy a growing interest because they build a bridge between macro- and microeconomic analyses. This paper focuses on the "top-down" approach. In this context, the CGE model is used to simulate the changes at the macroeconomic level after the policy change, which are then passed on to the MS model. The aim of this paper is to compare the "top-down" approach introduced by Bourguignon et al. (2003) based on a behavioural MS model with an alternative and simpler approach making use of a non-behavioural MS model in combination with a reweighting procedure. Both approaches are presented and applications are provided using South African data. We compare the results obtained with both approaches for a typical simulation of the impact of trade liberalisation on income distribution. The reweighting approach introduces a small bias in the results, however without modifying the main conclusions. This is an indication that, given its relative simplicity compared to the behavioural approach, the reweighting approach can constitute a good alternative when data or time constraints do not allow the use of the behavioural approach and when the interest does not lie in the production of individual-level transition matrices.

Following Savard (2004), this paper examines how microsimulation can contribute to general-equilibrium analysis (GEA). Microsimulation modeling can enhance GEA. The author illustrates the combination of the two approaches by applying them in sequence to assess the impact of trade liberalization in South Africa. The conclusion is that computable general-equilibrium models cause bias in income-distribution analyses because of the use of representative household groups rather than individual information. By correcting for this bias, microsimulation techniques can offer additional insights into income distribution., Dans la lignée des travaux de Savard (2004), ce papier se propose d’examiner les apports de la micro-simulation aux analyses en équilibre général. Il s’agit de montrer comment l’analyse en équilibre général peut être enrichie par l’utilisation d’un modèle de micro-simulation. L’application de ces deux approches, de manière séquentielle, à l’étude des effets de la libéralisation commerciale en Afrique du Sud en fournit une illustration. La conclusion est que les modèles d’équilibre général calculable ne constituent pas des outils appropriés pour l’analyse des impacts sur la distribution des revenus, de part les biais issus de l’utilisation de ménages représentatifs. La micro-simulation permet de corriger ces biais et autorise une analyse plus fine des effets en termes de distribution des revenus., Hérault Nicolas. Les apports de la micro-simulation aux modèles d’équilibre général : application au cas de l’Afrique du Sud . In: Économie & prévision, n°187, 2009-1. pp. 123-135.

This paper studies the effects of trade liberalisation on poverty and income inequality in South Africa. The main issue of interest is the effect of international trade on households (especially their income). The approach presented in this paper relies on combining a macro-orientated computable general equilibrium model with a microsimulation model. The main concern regarding poor households is whether the decrease in nominal earnings for formal low-skilled and skilled workers is offset by the upward trend in formal employment levels. The analysis indicates that such a trade-off occurs, implying a decrease in poverty due to trade liberalisation.

This paper examines the microeconomic effects of macroeconomic policies or shocks in South Africa. In particular, the paper considers the effects of macroeconomic policies on poverty and inequality by building and linking a microsimulation (MS) model to a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. In the South African context, where poverty and inequality are at high levels, this novel approach enables us to identify the winners and losers of any policy change, so that the impact on poverty and inequality can be assessed in detail.

This paper uses survival analysis to model exits from two alternative forms of homelessness: sleeping on the streets ('literal homelessness') and not having a home of one's own ('housing insecurity'). We are unique in being able to account for time-invariant, unobserved heterogeneity. Like previous researchers, we find results consistent with negative duration dependence in models which ignore unobserved heterogeneity. However, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, we find that duration dependence has an inverted U-shape with exit rates initially increasing (indicating positive duration dependence) and then falling. Exit rates out of both literal homelessness and housing insecurity fall with age. Women are more likely than men to exit housing insecurity for a home of their own, but are less likely to exit literal homelessness. Persons with dependent children have higher exit rates. Finally, education seems to protect people from longer periods of housing insecurity.

We examine trends in the redistributive impact of the tax-transfer system in Australia between 1994 and 2009 using a framework that allows us to separate the contributions of taxes and benefits to overall income redistribution. Furthermore, we identify the effect of tax-transfer policy reforms on changes in income redistribution over the period by controlling for changes in the distribution of market incomes. We find that after reaching a peak value in the late 1990s, the redistributive impact of taxes and transfers steadily declined. Although reforms to the tax-transfer system contributed to the decline in redistribution, their contribution was limited.

This paper uses survival analysis to model exits over time from two alternative notions of homelessness. We are unique in being able to account for time-invariant, unobserved heterogeneity. We find that duration dependence has an inverted U-shape with exit rates initially increasing (indicating positive duration dependence) and then falling. Like previous researchers, we find results consistent with negative duration dependence in models which ignore unobserved heterogeneity. Exit rates out of homelessness fall with age and with the education level of mothers. Women are more likely than men to exit homelessness when it is broadly conceived, but appear to be less likely to exit when it is narrowly defined. Finally, higher paternal education and exemptions from welfare-related activity requirements due to either mental or physical health conditions are all associated with higher exit rates.

This paper describes a simple and tractable method for identifying equivalence scales that reflect the value judgements implicit in a tax and benefits system. The approach depends upon two assumptions that are standard in the literature concerned with inequality and tax progressivity, in addition to a functional description for transfer payments that can be estimated using common micro-data sources. We use this approach to evaluate tax implicit equivalence scales for the UK transfer system that applied in April 2009. The tax implicit scales that we identify for the UK vary positively with tax unit size and are decreasing in gross earnings, reflecting recent econometric estimates based on consumption data. We conclude by discussing a range of potential applications for the proposed tax implicit scales.

In this paper we propose a framework to study changes in the redistributive consequences of income taxes and transfers. In contrast with previous approaches the new method allows decomposition of the change in the redistributive impact into four components: the immediate effect of changes in the tax-transfer system in the absence of labour supply responses; the effect of labour supply changes induced by changes in the tax-transfer system; the effect of all other labour supply changes; and a residual capturing the variation not explained by the previous factors. We illustrate the use of our decomposition method by analysing the changes in the redistributive impact of the tax and transfer system in Australia between 1999 and 2007. We find that labour supply changes, and in particular the increase in employment rates over the period, explain to a large extent the observed reduction in the redistributive effect of the tax-transfer system. A sizable part of these labour supply changes were found to be direct responses to tax-transfer reforms. Interestingly, we find that tax reforms were not responsible for the observed reduction in tax progressivity.

This paper investigates the persistence over time of living in a jobless household, aiming to disentangle the roles of state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. In addition, the potential heterogeneity of state dependence is examined through estimation of interaction terms with the lagged household joblessness variable. Finally, the robustness of results is explored through the use of alternative definitions of household joblessness each based on different variables available in our data. Using the two definitions that are most different, we find substantial state dependence which is larger for women than for men under both definitions. That is, being in a jobless household in the previous year increases the probability of currently living in a jobless household by 7.7 to 17.2 percentage points for men and 12.7 to 25.1 percentage points for women. Although state dependence clearly is an important factor, as are a number of observed characteristics, unobserved heterogeneity also plays an importantrole for men and women: 32 to 40 per cent of the unexplained variance can be attributed to unobserved heterogeneity for men, and for women this is 42 to 46 per cent. A few characteristics (age, disability, student status, living outside of major cities, having a university degree, presence of preschool children) seem to affect the level of state dependence to some extent. However, aside from the age effect, which can increase state dependence by up to 50 per cent for men aged 60 to 64, the level of state dependence seems fairly homogenous amongst men and amongst women.

This paper investigates the persistence over time of living in a jobless household, aiming to disentangle the roles of state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. In addition, the potential heterogeneity of state dependence is examined through estimation of interaction terms with the lagged household joblessness variable. Finally, the robustness of results is explored through the use of alternative definitions of household joblessness each based on different variables available in our data. Using the two definitions that are most different, we find substantial state dependence which is larger for women than for men under both definitions. That is, being in a jobless household in the previous year increases the probability of currently living in a jobless household by 7.7 to 17.2 percentage points for men and 12.7 to 25.1 percentage points for women. Although state dependence clearly is an important factor, as are a number of observed characteristics, unobserved heterogeneity also plays an important role for men and women: 32 to 40 per cent of the unexplained variance can be attributed to unobserved heterogeneity for men, and for women this is 42 to 46 per cent. A few characteristics (age, disability, student status, living outside of major cities, having a university degree, presence of preschool children) seem to affect the level of state dependence to some extent. However, aside from the age effect, which can increase state dependence by up to 50 per cent for men aged 60 to 64, the level of state dependence seems fairly homogenous amongst men and amongst women.

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic conditions on the education and employment outcomes of youths in school-to-work transition. The dataset is based on five different cohorts from the Youth in Transition surveys (YIT) and the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) and covers the period from 1985 to 2006, which is long enough to control explicitly for both poor and positive macroeconomic conditions. The multivariate analyses show that both the unemployment rates, and to a lesser extent economic growth rates, have an impact on youths' education and employment outcomes. Although the effects vary significantly by gender an education level, overall the results reveal that poor macroeconomic conditions tend to drive young people out of full-time work and into inactivity or part-time work. In addition, poor macroeconomic conditions tend to discourage further education. A result worth noticing is that males who did not complete secondary school suffer the largest increase in unemployment risks as the unemployment rate increases.

Extensive research has shown that few robust results regarding the optimal tax structure are available. Moreover, the stylised models used in optimal tax analyses are not appropriate for practical policy advice. This paper proposes a method of examining optimal marginal income tax reforms using behavioural microsimulation models in which the full extent of population heterogeneity is represented along with all the details of highly complex tax and transfer systems. The approach is illustrated using the Australian microsimulation model MITTS. The results show that the marginal welfare changes for the Australian income tax structure are not symmetric with respect to increases and decreases in tax rates, largely because of the asymmetry in tax revenue changes arising from differential labour supply effects in different ranges of the income distribution. In addition, the extent of inequality aversion was found to play a much larger role in the determination of the optimal direction of rate changes than the form of the welfare metric or the specification of adult equivalence scales.

This paper focuses on the correlation of labour market outcomes of parents and children and investigates whether education is an important factor in this correlation, allowing for its potential endogeneity. Based on the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data, the multivariate analyses show that men's labour market outcomes are affected by their fathers' labour market outcomes. The results show no significant intergenerational correlation of labour market outcomes for women when using the proportion of time in unemployment However, there is a significant relationship between the labour market outcomes of the mother and the proportion of time spent out of work by her daughter. Finally, the results show a significant relationship between parents' and children's education levels, indicating that there is an indirect effect of parental education on their children's labour market outcomes through education. Indeed, it is shown that education significantly reduces the proportion of time in unemployment and not in work.

This paper extends the 'top-down' framework, introduced by Robilliard et al. (2001), to link a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to a microsimulation model. The proposed approach allows the linking of a microsimulation model to a dynamic, and not simply a static, CGE model by enabling the microsimulation model to reproduce the predicted long-term changes in the base population. The approach relies on altering the sample weights in order to reproduce population projections and the changes in employment as estimated by the CGE model. A particular effort is made to discuss the limitations arising from the various assumptions made in both models as well as in the linking process. As an illustrative example, the approach is applied to assess the effects of climate-change mitigation policies in Australia from 2005 to 2030 at five-yearly intervals.

Several approaches have recently been developed to combine a computable general equilibrium model (CGE) and a microsimulation (MS) model. These so-called CGE-MS models enjoy a growing interest because they build a bridge between macro- and microeconomic analyses. This paper focuses on the ‘top-down' approach. In this context, the CGE model is used to simulate the changes at the macroeconomic level after the policy change, which are then passed on to the MS model. The aim of this paper is to compare the ‘top-down' approach introduced by Robilliard et al. (2001) based on a behavioural MS model with an alternative and simpler approach making use of a non-behavioural MS model in combination with a reweighting procedure. Both approaches are presented and then applied to the case of trade liberalisation in South Africa. The reweighting approach introduces a small bias in the results, however without modifying the main conclusions. Given its relative simplicity compared to the behavioural approach, the reweighting approach seems to constitute a good alternative when data or time constraints do not allow the use of the behavioural approach and when the interest does not lie in the production of individual-level transition matrices.

This paper examines the role of the tax-free income tax threshold in a complex tax and transfer system consisting of a range of taxes and benefits, each with their own taper rates and thresholds. Considering a range of tax and benefit systems, particularly those having benefit taper rates whereby some benefits are received by income groups other than those at the bottom of the distribution, it is suggested that a tax-free threshold is not a necessary requirement to achieve redistribution. A policy change involving the elimination of the taxfree threshold in Australia and designed to achieve approximate revenue neutrality is examined using the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator. The results demonstrate that it is possible to eliminate the tax-free threshold under approximate overall revenue and distribution neutrality, but that labour supply incentives cannot be improved at the same time.

This paper examines the role of the tax-free income tax threshold in a complex tax and transfer system consisting of a range of taxes and benefits, each with its own taper rates and thresholds. Considering a tax and benefit system with benefit taper rates whereby some benefits are received by income groups other than those at the bottom of the distribution, it is suggested that a tax-free threshold is not a necessary requirement to achieve redistribution. Four alternative policy changes, each involving the elimination of the tax-free threshold in Australia and designed to achieve approximate revenue neutrality, were examined using the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator. A range of implications were examined, including labour supply responses to tax changes and the effects of policy changes on inequality and social welfare. The results demonstrate that it is possible to eliminate the tax-free threshold under approximate overall revenue and distribution neutrality, but that it is impossible to improve labour supply incentives at the same time. In order to achieve improved incentives, either revenue or distribution neutrality has to be sacrificed. © Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2009.

This paper describes a newly-built micro-macro model for South Africa. A computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a microsimulation (MS) model are combined in a sequential approach in order to build an effective tool to assess the effects of various macroeconomic policies and shocks on South African households. The CGE model is used to simulate the macro-changes in the structure of the economy after the policy change or the macro-shock. In a second step, these changes are passed on to the MS model. Micro-macro consistency equations, along with the direct transmission of prices, ensure that macro-changes are fully transmitted from the CGE to the MS model. Given any change in the macroeconomic structure of the economy predicted by the CGE model, the MS model predicts how individual agents modify their behaviours and how their incomes are affected, while accounting for individual heterogeneity.

This paper describes the project of building a micro-macro model for South Africa. The aim is to deal with the links between globalisation and poverty or inequality, explaining the effects of trade liberalisation on poverty and inequality. The main issue of interest is the effect of international trade on households (especially their income); some changes may contribute to reduce poverty while other changes could work against the poor. The approach presented in this paper relies on combining a macro-oriented CGE model and a microsimulation model. Combining these two models the microeconomic effects (on poverty and inequality) of a macroeconomic policy (trade liberalisation) can be analysed. The paper gives details about the microsimulation model and the "top-down" approach used to link the microsimulation model and the CGE model. In addition, the methodology discussed is applied to South African data and a selection of preliminary results using this approach are presented and discussed. The main concern regarding poor households is whether the decrease in real (or nominal) earnings for formal low-skilled and skilled workers is offset by the upward trend in formal employment levels. This appears to be the case implying a decrease in poverty due to trade liberalisation. Although whites emerge as the main winners, the increase in inter-group inequality is more than compensated by the decrease in intra-group inequality. Ce papier décrit le projet d’élaboration d’un modèle micro-macro pour l'Afrique du Sud. L’objectif est d’examiner les liens entre la mondialisation et la pauvreté ou l'inégalité, en expliquant les effets de la libéralisation commerciale sur ces deux indicateurs de progrès social. La préoccupation principale concerne l'effet du commerce international sur les ménages (particulièrement, leur revenu), certains changements pouvant contribuer à réduire la pauvreté, tandis que d'autres étant susceptibles d’aggraver les privations. L'approche présentée dans cet article est fondée sue la combinaison d’un modèle CGE orienté-macro et d’un modèle de micro-simulation. En combinant ces deux modèles, les effets micro-économiques (sur la pauvreté et l'inégalité) d'une politique macro-économique (libéralisation commerciale) peuvent être analysés. L’étude spécifie le modèle de micro-simulation et l'approche « top-down », employés pour relier les modèles de micro-simulation et CGE.En outre, la méthodologie discutée est appliquée aux données sud-africaines, et des résultats préliminaires, fondés sur cette approche, sont présentés et discutés. Un élément central de l’analyse concernant les ménages pauvres est d’examiner si la diminution des revenus réels (ou nominaux) des ouvriers qualifiés ou faiblement qualifiés du secteur formel est compensée par la tendance à la hausse de l’emploi formel. L’étude montre que cela semble être le cas, ce qui implique une diminution de la pauvreté due à la libéralisation commerciale. Bien que les bénéficiaires principaux soient les « blancs », l'augmentation de l'inégalité inter-groupes est plus que compensée par la diminution de l'inégalité intra-groupes. (Full text in english)

Cet article présente les résultats d'un modèle d'équilibre général calculable (MEGC) appliqué au cas de l'Afrique du Sud. L'objectif est d'évaluer les effets des politiques de libéralisation commerciale sur la croissance économique, les dynamiques sectorielles et, dans une moindre mesure, les revenus des ménages. Le modèle utilisé comporte 43 secteurs, 4 facteurs de production, 14 ménages représentatifs, 10 régions du monde (pour le commerce extérieur) et tient compte de certaines imperfections des marchés (chômage,…). Deux types de politique sont simulés : l'accord de libre échange signé en 1999 avec l'Union Européenne et une suppression unilatérale de tous les droits de douane. Quatre procédures de bouclage différentes sont utilisées pour chaque simulation. Bien que positifs, les impacts s'avèrent limités, tant sur la croissance du commerce extérieur que sur celle du PIB. D'autre part, les politiques d'ouverture commerciale nuisent à certains secteurs industriels et surtout, semblent accroître systématiquement les inégalités de revenu. This article presents the results of various simulations carried out on South Africa using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The aim is to analyze the effects of various trade liberalization policies on economic growth, activities dynamics, and to a less extent, on households’ incomes. The CGE model consists in 43 activities, 4 production factors, 14 representative households, 10 trading regions (for the foreign trade). Some market imperfections, like unemployment, are taken into account. Two kinds of policies are simulated: the free trade agreement signed with the European Union in 1999 and the elimination of tariff barriers. Each simulation is run under four different sets of closures. Although positive, the impacts are limited, as well as on the growth of the foreign trade as on that of the GDP. Besides, trade liberalization negatively affects the activity levels of some industries, and above all, it seems to systematically increase the income inequalities. (Full text in french)

This article presents the results of various simulations carried out on South Africa using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The aim is to analyze the effects of various trade liberalization policies on economic growth, activities dynamics, and to a less extent, on households' incomes. The CGE model consists in 43 activities, 4 production factors, 14 representative households, 10 trading regions (for the foreign trade). Some market imperfections, like unemployment, are taken into account. Two kinds of policies are simulated: the free trade agreement signed with the European Union in 1999 and the elimination of tariff barriers. Each simulation is run under four different sets of closures. Although positive, the impacts are limited, as well as on the growth of the foreign trade as on that of the GDP. Besides, trade liberalization negatively affects the activity levels of some industries, and above all, it seems to systematically increase the income inequalities.

Au cœur de la controverse qui oppose actuellement les partisans de la mondialisation et les mouvements « alter-mondialistes » se trouve la question des effets de la libéralisation commerciale sur les pays en développement (PED), et donc en particulier sur l'un des problèmes majeurs de ces pays, à savoir la pauvreté. Le débat sur ce point est d'autant plus intense qu'il ne paraît pas possible de trancher la question par la simple observation des expériences passées. La réponse des économistes à ces problèmes s'est faite en faisant appel à la modélisation et l'évaluation empirique. En effet, étant donné que certaines interactions sont positives et d'autres négatives, il devient nécessaire de faire appel à des études quantitatives. C'est dans ce but que sont utilisés les modèles d'équilibre général calculable (MEGC). Ils visent à représenter de la manière la plus fidèle possible le fonctionnement de l'économie du pays étudié. En particulier ils permettent de tenir compte des nombreuses interactions (en particulier intersectorielles) et aussi d'isoler les effets de différents facteurs. Il s'agit ici de nuancer ces résultats en soulignant les nombreuses difficultés auxquelles se heurtent ces approches quantitatives. Les difficultés auxquelles s'expose l'évaluation quantitative des effets de la libéralisation commerciale sur la pauvreté relèvent principalement de trois catégories : celles relatives à la disponibilité et à la qualité des données, les difficultés concernant la définition et donc les mesures de la pauvreté, des inégalités et de la mondialisation, et enfin les difficultés méthodologiques liées aux méthodes de modélisation en équilibre général. In the debate between “pro” and “anti” globalization one of the main questions dealswith the effects of trade liberalization on developing countries, and especially on poverty. Theargumentation on this point is very controversial since it is impossible to answer this questionsimply by looking back to the past and observing what has happened to different countries:experiences are too diverse. Moreover some consequences of globalization may help to reducepoverty while some others clearly work against the poor. Economists recommend solving theseproblems by using models and empirical evaluation. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelsare used in this way. They are designed to explain as accurately as possible the running of theeconomy of the country studied. They are able to take into account many interactions (inparticular between different economic activities) and to separate the effects of differentfactors. By highlighting the various difficulties inherent to such modeling, this paper tries tomake clear why the results of these models are questionable. The main difficulties faced byquantitative evaluations of the impacts of trade liberalization on poverty may be displayed inthree categories: those associated to data availability and quality; those regarding thedefinitions and thus the measures of poverty, inequality and globalization; and eventually themethodological difficulties linked to such modeling in general equilibrium. (Full text inFrench)