IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/itaxpf/v11y2004i4p487-506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reduced Tax Progressivity in Norway in the Nineties: The Effect from Tax Changes

Author

Listed:
  • Thor O. Thoresen

Abstract

The inequality in pre-tax income increased in Norway in the 1990s, while the concentration of taxes remained largely unaltered. This means that tax progressivity has decreased in the period, as measured by summary indices of tax progressivity. In this paper I analyze individual income data to ascertain whether tax changes in the period can explain the observed decrease in tax progressivity. As marginal tax rates at high income levels have been substantially reduced in the period, for instance through the tax reform of 1992, it is expected that tax changes may have influenced the degree of inequality in pre-tax incomes. This behavioral effect is examined by deriving estimates of the elasticity of gross income with respect to the net-of-tax rate, obtained from various panel data regressions. The tax changes may also have shifted the distributional burden of taxes for unaltered level of pre-tax income inequality. In order to identify this (direct) effect of tax-law alterations, the same fixed distribution of pre-tax income is exposed to various tax-laws in the period.

Suggested Citation

  • Thor O. Thoresen, 2004. "Reduced Tax Progressivity in Norway in the Nineties: The Effect from Tax Changes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 11(4), pages 487-506, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:11:y:2004:i:4:p:487-506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0927-5940/contents
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karl Ove Aarbu & Thor Olav Thoresen, 1997. "The Norwegian Tax Reform; Distributional Effects and the High-income Response," Discussion Papers 207, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    2. John Bishop & K. Chow & John Formby & Chih-Chin Ho, 1997. "Did Tax Reform Reduce Actual US Progressivity? Evidence from the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 4(2), pages 177-197, May.
    3. John A. Bishop & K. Victor Chow & John P. Formby & C. C. Ho, "undated". "Tax Gaps and Tax Rates: New Evidence from the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program," Working Papers 9724, East Carolina University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Peter Lambert & Thor Thoresen, 2009. "Base independence in the analysis of tax policy effects: with an application to Norway 1992–2004," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(2), pages 219-252, April.
    2. Aarbu, Karl O. & Thoresen, Thor O., 2001. "Income Responses to Tax Changes--Evidence From the Norwegian Tax Reform," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 54(2), pages 319-338, June.
    3. Paivi Mattila-Wiro, 2009. "Income Distribution Effects of a Finnish Work Incentive Trap Reform," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 12(3), pages 1-3.
    4. André DECOSTER & Guy VAN CAMP, 2000. "Redistributive Effects of the Shift from Personal Income Taxes to Indirect Taxes: Belgium 1988-1993," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces0007, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    5. Enrico Rubolino & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "Tax progressivity and top incomes evidence from tax reforms," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(3), pages 261-289, September.
    6. Bergh, Andreas & Dackehag, Margareta & Rode, Martin, 2017. "Are OECD policy recommendations for public sector reform biased against welfare states? Evidence from a new database," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 3-15.
    7. Bargain, Olivier & Dolls, Mathias & Immervoll, Herwig & Neumann, Dirk & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2011. "Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1978-2009: A Decomposition Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 5910, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. André Decoster & Isabelle Standaert & Christian Valenduc & Guy Van Camp, 2002. "What makes personal income taxes progressive? The case of Belgium," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 45(3), pages 91-112.
    9. Bergh, Andreas, 2006. "Explaining Welfare State Survival: The Role of Economic Freedom and Globalization," Ratio Working Papers 101, The Ratio Institute.
    10. Thor O. Thoresen & Erlend E. Bø & Erik Fjærli & Elin Halvorsen, 2012. "A Suggestion for Evaluating the Redistributional Effects of Tax Changes: With an Application to the 2006 Norwegian Tax Reform," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(3), pages 303-338, May.
    11. Ingvild Almås & Tarjei Havnes & Magne Mogstad, 2011. "Baby booming inequality? Demographic change and earnings inequality in Norway, 1967–2000," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 629-650, December.
    12. Andreas Bergh, 2008. "Explaining the Survival of the Swedish Welfare State: Maintaining Political Support Through Incremental Change," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(3), pages 233-254.
    13. Thor O. Thoresen & Zhiyang Jia & Peter J. Lambert, 2013. "Distributional benchmarking in tax policy evaluations," Discussion Papers 765, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    14. André Decoster & Erwin Ooghe, 2002. "Weighting with individuals, equivalent individuals, or not weighting at all. Does it matter empirically?," Public Economics Working Paper Series ces0215, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centrum voor Economische Studiën, Working Group Public Economics.
    15. Miyazaki, Takeshi & Kitamura, Yukinobu, 2014. "Redistributive Effects of Income Tax Rates and Tax Base 1984-2009: Evidence from Japanese Tax Reforms," Discussion Paper Series 610, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    16. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    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:kap:itaxpf:v:11:y:2004:i:4:p:487-506. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.