IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cpn/umkeip/v19y2020i1p149-161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Redistribution and the alleviation of income inequalities: the case of the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Malgorzata Szczepaniak

    (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun)

Abstract

Motivation: The income inequalities are considered an important economic and social problem, because increasing income inequalities may make it difficult to achieve such policy goals as: social cohesion and inclusive development. State’s interference through redistribution is aimed to decrease the differences between the rich and poor. Even though social transfers alleviate the income inequalities, the extent to which they decrease the gap between the rich and the poor is different in European Union (EU) countries. The answer to the question of redistribution effectiveness is extremely important from this perspective. Aim: The article aims to present the diversity of EU countries from the perspective of income inequalities, social transfers (government expenditures on social protection, health and education) and finally redistribution. Its aim is also to assess the impact of social transfers on inequalities on the basis of dynamic panel data model. Results: There is no significant relationship between the level of social transfers and Gini disposable income. However, the results of regression analysis proved that government expenditures on social protection significantly increase the difference between market and disposable income inequalities (Gini gap) and therefore more effectively decrease income inequalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Malgorzata Szczepaniak, 2020. "Redistribution and the alleviation of income inequalities: the case of the European Union," Ekonomia i Prawo, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 19(1), pages 149-161, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpn:umkeip:v:19:y:2020:i:1:p:149-161
    DOI: 10.12775/EiP.2020.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/EiP.2020.011
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.12775/EiP.2020.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Easterly, William, 2007. "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 755-776, November.
    2. Bussolo,Maurizio & Krolage,Carla & Makovec,Mattia & Peichl,Andreas & Stockli,Marc & Torre,Ivan & Wittneben,Christian, 2018. "Vertical and Horizontal Redistribution : The Cases of Western and Eastern Europe," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8657, The World Bank.
    3. Philipp Doerrenberg & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "The impact of redistributive policies on inequality in OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(17), pages 2066-2086, June.
    4. Niehues, Judith, 2010. "Social Spending Generosity and Income Inequality: A Dynamic Panel Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 5178, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. António Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2010. "Income distribution determinants and public spending efficiency," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(3), pages 367-389, September.
    6. Knut Røed & Steinar Strøm, 2002. "Progressive Taxes and the Labour Market: Is the Trade–off Between Equality and Efficiency Inevitable?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 77-110, February.
    7. Judith Niehues, 2010. "Social Spending Generosity and Income Inequality: A Dynamic Panel Approach," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 336, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. Luca Agnello & Vitor Castro & João Tovar Jalles & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2017. "Income inequality, fiscal stimuli and political (in)stability," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(3), pages 484-511, June.
    9. Orsetta Causa & Mikkel Hermansen, 2017. "Income redistribution through taxes and transfers across OECD countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1453, 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. Szczepaniak, Małgorzata & Geise, Andrzej & Bariyah, Nurul, 2022. "Impact of institutional determinants on income inequalities in Indonesia during the Era Reformasi," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Bianca VEZENTAN & Olimpia NEAGU, 2024. "Income Inequality, Economic Growth, And Institutional Factors: A Comparative Analysis At The European Union (Eu) Level," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 192-204, July.

    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. d’Agostino, Giorgio & Pieroni, Luca & Scarlato, Margherita, 2020. "Social transfers and income inequality in OECD countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 313-327.
    2. Giorgio d'Agostino & Luca Pieroni & Margherita Scarlato, 2018. "Further evidence of the relationship between social transfers and income inequality in OECD countries," Working Papers 482, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    4. Ángeles Sánchez & Antonio L. Pérez-Corral, 2018. "Government Social Expenditure and Income Inequalities in the European Union," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 227(4), pages 133-156, December.
    5. Can Verberi & Sema Yasar, 2021. "The Effects of Social Spending on Income Inequality in 30 OECD Countries," Istanbul Journal of Economics-Istanbul Iktisat Dergisi, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 71(1), pages 39-57, June.
    6. Philipp Doerrenberg & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "The impact of redistributive policies on inequality in OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(17), pages 2066-2086, June.
    7. Kyriacou, Andreas & Muinelo-Gallo, Leonel & Roca-Sagalés, Oriol, 2015. "On the redistributive efficiency of fiscal policy," MPRA Paper 63276, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. d'Agostino, Giorgio & Pieroni, Luca & Procidano, Isabella, 2016. "Revisiting the relationship between welfare spending and income inequality in OECD countries," MPRA Paper 72020, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Akisik, Orhan & Gal, Graham, 2023. "IFRS, financial development and income inequality: An empirical study using mediation analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(2).
    10. Quinonez, Pablo, 2022. "Social spending and income inequality in Latin America. A panel data approach," MPRA Paper 113538, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kim, Hyoungjong & Rhee, Dong-Eun, 2022. "The effects of asset prices on income inequality: Redistribution policy does matter," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    12. Jianu, Ionut & Dobre, Ion & Bodislav, Dumitru Alexandru & Radulescu, Carmen Valentina & Burlacu, Sorin, 2019. "The implications of institutional specificities on the income inequalities drivers in European Union," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53(2), pages 59-76.
    13. Cosmin Eugen ENACHE, 2012. "The efficiency of expenditure-related redistributive policies in the European countries," Timisoara Journal of Economics, West University of Timisoara, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 5(18), pages 380-394.
    14. Bação, Pedro & Duarte, Joshua & Simões, Marta, 2024. "Social expenditure composition, inequality and growth in the OECD: Labour market policies are most effective," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 75-89.
    15. Martin Guzi & Martin Kahanec, 2018. "Income Inequality and the Size of Government: A Causal Analysis," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2018-02, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    16. Goodness C. Aye & Matthew W. Clance & Rangan Gupta, 2019. "The effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy shocks on U.S. inequality: the role of uncertainty," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 283-295, January.
    17. Jiří Hasman & Josef Novotný, 2015. "Cross-National Variation in Income Inequality and its Determinants: An Application of Bayesian Model Averaging on a New Standardized Inequality Data Set," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(2), pages 211-224.
    18. Ali T. Cem Başlevent, 2014. "Social Transfers and Income Inequality in Turkey: How Informative Is the Survey of Income and Living Conditions?," Ekonomi-tek - International Economics Journal, Turkish Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 23-42, September.
    19. Michaël Sicsic, 2022. "Does labour income react more to income tax or means‐tested benefits reforms?," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(3), pages 291-319, September.
    20. Tingyun Chen & Jean-Jacques Hallaert & Alexander Pitt & Haonan Qu & Maximilien Queyranne & Alaina Rhee & Anna Shabunina & Jérôme Vandenbussche & Irene Yackovlev, 2018. "Inequality and Poverty across Generations in the European Union," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 18/01, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income inequalities; redistribution; social transfers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs

    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:cpn:umkeip:v:19:y:2020:i:1:p:149-161. 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: Miroslawa Buczynska (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.wydawnictwoumk.pl .

    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.