Artikel

Redistribution in Switzerland: Social Cohesion or Simple Smoothing of Lifetime Incomes?

Using the example of Switzerland, this paper examines the extent to which the state and the social security institutions change the income distribution. Two sets of questions are examined: (1) Who benefits from the public services, and who bears the public costs? (2) To what extent does an annual redistribution involve redistribution (a) across households with different lifetime income, and (b) across different phases of life within the same households? Budget incidence analyses and pseudo panel procedures allow to compare annual and lifetime household incomes that arise before and after transfers. The results suggest that public interventions induce substantial redistribution, which is due primarily, however, to income-smoothing transfers within households and not to redistribution across households.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Journal: Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics ; ISSN: 2235-6282 ; Volume: 147 ; Year: 2011 ; Issue: 2 ; Pages: 107-155 ; Heidelberg: Springer

Classification
Wirtschaft
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
Taxation and Subsidies: Incidence
Subject
Budget Incidence Analysis
Redistribution
Lifetime Income Smoothing
Pseudo Panel Procedure

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Engler, Monika
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Springer
(where)
Heidelberg
(when)
2011

DOI
doi:10.1007/BF03399343
Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Artikel

Associated

  • Engler, Monika
  • Springer

Time of origin

  • 2011

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