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Non-Cash Benefits and the Distribution of Economic Welfare

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  • Callan, Tim

    (ESRI, Dublin)

  • Keane, Claire

    (ESRI, Dublin)

Abstract

Non-cash benefits can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. Standard approaches to the inclusion of non-cash benefits in broader measures of resources have failed to take adequate account of the pattern of needs associated with the greater use of health and education services. Our results, for Ireland in the year 2000, show that it is possible to derive more appropriate measures of total resources than have been derived using standard methods. The results indicate that the greatest impact comes from the inclusion of imputed rent for owner occupation as part of the resource measure. When this is done, the rate of "resource poverty" for older people is substantially reduced, in line with results which use indicators of standard of living as well as cash incomes ("consistent poverty").

Suggested Citation

  • Callan, Tim & Keane, Claire, 2009. "Non-Cash Benefits and the Distribution of Economic Welfare," IZA Discussion Papers 3954, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3954
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    4. Ive Marx & Brian Nolan & Javier Olivera, 2014. "The Welfare State and Anti-Poverty Policy in Rich Countries," Working Papers 1403, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    5. Cathal O’Donoghue & Jason Loughrey & Karyn Morrissey, 2013. "Using the EU-SILC to model the impact of the economic crisis on inequality," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-26, December.
    6. Christos Koutsampelas & Panos Tsakloglou, 2013. "The distribution of full income in Greece," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(4), pages 311-330, March.
    7. Rolf Aaberge & Audun Langørgen & Petter Lindgren, 2013. "The distributional impact of public services in," Discussion Papers 746, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    8. Verbist, G. (Gerlinde) & Matsaganis, M. (Manos), 2012. "GINI DP 53: The Redistributive Capacity of Services in the EU," GINI Discussion Papers 53, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    9. Callan, Tim & Keane, Claire & Savage, Michael & Walsh, John R., 2013. "Distributional Impact of Tax, Welfare and Public Service Pay Policies: Budget 2014 and Budgets 2009-2014," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    10. Olivier Bargain & Claire Keane, 2010. "Tax–Benefit‐revealed Redistributive Preferences Over Time: Ireland 1987–2005," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(s1), pages 141-167, December.
    11. Brian Nolan & Bertrand Maitre & Sarah Voitchovsky & Christopher Whelan, 2012. "GINI DP 70: Inequality and Poverty in Boom and Bust: Ireland as a Case Study," GINI Discussion Papers 70, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/53r60a8s3kup1vc9jipk5i5h7 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Hillringhaus, Tilman & Peichl, Andreas, 2010. "Die Messung von Armut unter Berücksichtigung regional divergierender Lebenshaltungskosten und öffentlicher Leistungen," IZA Discussion Papers 5344, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Kilgarriff, Paul & Charlton, Martin & Foley, Ronan & O'Donoghue, Cathal, 2019. "The impact of housing consumption value on the spatial distribution of welfare," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 118-130.
    15. Matt Jensen & Will Ensor & Amy Xu & Anderson Frailey, 2017. "A budget-neutral universal basic income," AEI Economics Working Papers 930433, American Enterprise Institute.
    16. Tess Penne & Irene Cussó Parcerisas & Lauri Mäkinen & Bérénice Storms & Tim Goedemé, 2016. "Can reference budgets be used as a poverty line?," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/05, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/53r60a8s3kup1vc9jipk5i5h7 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Duffy, David & FitzGerald, John & Timoney, Kevin & Byrne, David, 2013. "Quarterly Economic Commentary, Winter 2013," Forecasting Report, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number QEC20134, march.
    19. Callan, Tim & Bercholz, Maxime & Doorley, Karina & Keane, Claire & Regan, Mark & Savage, Michael & Walsh, John, 2017. "Distributional Impact of Tax and Welfare Policies: Budget 2018," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    20. Keane, Claire & Seán Lyons & Mark Regan & Walsh, Brendan, 2022. "Home support services in Ireland: Exchequer and distributional impacts of funding options," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number SUSTAT111.
    21. Callan, Tim & Bercholz, Maxime & Doorley, Karina & Keane, Claire & Savage, Michael & Walsh, John R, 2016. "Distributional Impact of Tax and Welfare Policies: Budget 2017," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    22. Simone Pellegrino & Massimiliano Piacenza & Gilberto Turati, 2011. "Assessing the Distributional Effects of Housing Taxation in Italy: From the Actual Tax Code to Imputed Rent," CESifo Working Paper Series 3368, CESifo.
    23. Keane, Claire & Callan, Tim & Savage, Michael & Walsh, John R. & Colgan, Brian, 2014. "Distributional Impact of Tax, Welfare and Public Service Pay Policies: Budget 2015 and Budgets 2009-2015," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    24. Nav Persaud & Liane Steiner & Hannah Woods & Tatiana Aratangy & Susitha Wanigaratne & Jane Polsky & Stephen Hwang & Gurleen Chahal & Andrew Pinto, 2019. "Health outcomes related to the provision of free, tangible goods: A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-29, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    income distribution; non-cash benefits;

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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