IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/lacicr/0817.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Classes, Inequality and Redistributive Policies in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Abdelkrim Araar

Abstract

The social performance of fiscal redistributive mechanisms in Canada continues to receive a growing interest from politicians and research scientists. The aim of this paper is to assess the evolution of social classes in Canada and to check whether the market and governmental redistribution factors have affected their evolution during the last decade. We focus on the dynamic of inequality, polarization and progressivity of the fiscal system. The results of this study confirm the effectiveness of governmental redistributive mechanism to decrease inequality and polarization significantly and to maintain the middle social class at the detriment of the poorest one. The other evidence concerns the chronic increase in population share and wellbeing of the rich class. Finally, the progressivity of fiscal sytem has registered a significant increase during the last few years.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdelkrim Araar, 2008. "Social Classes, Inequality and Redistributive Policies in Canada," Cahiers de recherche 0817, CIRPEE.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirpee.org/fileadmin/documents/Cahiers_2008/CIRPEE08-17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    3. Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2003. "An Atkinson-Gini family of social evaluation functions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(19), pages 1-16.
    4. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    5. Lambert, Peter J & Aronson, J Richard, 1993. "Inequality Decomposition Analysis and the Gini Coefficient Revisited," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1221-1227, September.
    6. Shaohua Chien & Martin Ravallion, 2001. "How did the world's poorest fare in the 1990s?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 47(3), pages 283-300, September.
    7. Kakwani, Nanok C, 1977. "Measurement of Tax Progressivity: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 87(345), pages 71-80, March.
    8. Ravallion, Martin & Bidani, Benu, 1994. "How Robust Is a Poverty Profile?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 8(1), pages 75-102, January.
    9. James Foster & Michael Wolfson, 2010. "Polarization and the decline of the middle class: Canada and the U.S," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 247-273, June.
    10. Jean-Yves Duclos & Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2004. "Polarization: Concepts, Measurement, Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1737-1772, November.
    11. R. A. Musgrave & Tun Thin, 1948. "Income Tax Progression, 1929-48," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(6), pages 498-498.
    12. Abdelkrim Araar & Awoyemi Taiwo, 2006. "Poverty and Inequality Nexus: Illustrations with Nigerian Data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 28(15), pages 1.
    13. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:28:y:2006:i:15:p:a0 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2004. "Measuring polarization, inequality, welfare and poverty," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/75, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    15. repec:bla:revinw:v:39:y:1993:i:2:p:121-39 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2006. "Poverty and Equity," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, Springer, number 978-0-387-33318-2, November.
    17. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2003:i:19:p:1-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    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. Luis Huesca & Arturo Robles Valencia & Abdelkrim Araar, 2015. "Progressivity and decomposition of VAT in the Mexican border, 2014," Estudios Regionales en Economía, Población y Desarrollo. Cuadernos de Trabajo de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez. 25, Cuerpo Académico 41 de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, revised 01 Jan 2015.
    2. Guillermo Cruces & Luis Felipe López Calva & Diego Battistón, 2011. "Down and Out or Up and In? Polarization-Based Measures of the Middle Class for Latin America," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0113, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    3. Abdelkrim Araar & Luis Huesca, 2014. "Comparison of the Tax System Progressivity Over Time: Theory and Application with Mexican Data," Cahiers de recherche 1419, CIRPEE.

    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. Abdelkrim Araar, 2008. "On the Decomposition of Polarization Indices: Illustrations with Chinese and Nigerian Household Surveys," Cahiers de recherche 0806, CIRPEE.
    2. Abdelkrim Araar & Luis Huesca, 2014. "Comparison of the Tax System Progressivity Over Time: Theory and Application with Mexican Data," Cahiers de recherche 1419, CIRPEE.
    3. Luis Huesca Reynoso & Abdelkrim Araar, 2016. "Comparison of fiscal system progressivity over time: theory and application in Mexico," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 31(1), pages 3-45.
    4. Jo Thori Lind & Karl Moene, 2011. "Miserly Developments," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1332-1352, June.
    5. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Sarkar, Palash, 2022. "A synthesis of local and effective tax progressivity measurement," MPRA Paper 115180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Mariateresa Ciommi & Chiara Gigliarano & Giovanni Maria Giorgi, 2019. "Bonferroni And De Vergottini Are Back: New Subgroup Decompositions And Bipolarization Measures," Working Papers 439, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    7. Maria Livia ŞTEFĂNESCU, 2015. "Analyzing the health status of the population using ordinal data," Computational Methods in Social Sciences (CMSS), "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 3(1), pages 18-24, June.
    8. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2004. "Measuring polarization, inequality, welfare and poverty," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/75, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    9. Marta Pascual & David Cantarero & Paloma Lanza, 2018. "Health polarization and inequalities across Europe: an empirical approach," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(8), pages 1039-1051, November.
    10. Wang, Chen & Wan, Guanghua, 2015. "Income polarization in China: Trends and changes," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 58-72.
    11. Onrubia Fernández, Jorge & Picos, Fidel & Rodado, María del Carmen, 2019. "Shifting tax burden to top income earners: What is the best way to reduce inequality?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-31.
    12. Teixidó-Figueras, J. & Duro, J.A., 2014. "Spatial Polarization of the Ecological Footprint Distribution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 93-106.
    13. Sebastian Levine & Benjamin Roberts, 2013. "Robust Estimates of Changes in Poverty and Inequality in Post-Independence Namibia," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(2), pages 167-191, June.
    14. Fabio Clementi & Francesco Schettino, 2013. "Income polarization in Brazil, 2001-2011: A distributional analysis using PNAD data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 1796-1815.
    15. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.
    16. Samuel Fambon, 2005. "Croissance économique, pauvreté et inégalité des revenus au Cameroun," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 13(1), pages 91-122.
    17. Bigsten, Arne & Kebede, Bereket & Shimeles, Abebe & Taddesse, Mekonnen, 2003. "Growth and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia: Evidence from Household Panel Surveys," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 87-106, January.
    18. Ali Enami & Patricio Larroulet & Nora Lustig, 2022. "How Accurate is the Kakwani Index in Predicting Whether a Tax or a Transfer is Equalizing? An Empirical Analysis," Working Papers 2204, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    19. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2022. "Fleshing out the olive? Observations on income polarization in China since 1981," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    20. Satya Chakravarty & Bhargav Maharaj, 2012. "Ethnic polarization orderings and indices," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 7(1), pages 99-123, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social classes; poverty; inequality; redistribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lvl:lacicr:0817. 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: Manuel Paradis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cirpeca.html .

    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.