Towards more comprehensive measures of social support: adding in the impact of taxes and private Spending or netting out the impact of politics on redistribution?

Arbeitspapier

This paper offers a critique and analysis of recent OECD research by Adema and Ladaique identifying the impact of taxes and private benefits on social spending. Using the techniques of multivariate modelling, we show that both gross public and net private expenditures are strongly influenced by partisan incumbency, although in opposite directions, and that the more we net out the effect of taxes, the less politics matters and the more spending is shaped by economic forces. In a second stage of the analysis, we show that the crucial mechanism of welfare state redistribution is the taxation of gross social expenditure and demonstrate that this effect is almost entirely political in nature.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ZeS-Arbeitspapier ; No. 04/2006

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Politik

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Castles, Francis G. ; Obinger, Herbert
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Universität Bremen, Zentrum für Sozialpolitik (ZeS)
• (where): Bremen
• (when): 2006

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/27126
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET