Income tax progressivity, growth, income inequality and welfare

This paper analyzes the effects of personal income tax progressivity on long-run economic growth, income inequality and social welfare. The quantitative implications of income tax progressivity increments are illustrated for the US economy under three main headings: individual effects (reduced labor supply and savings, and increased dispersion of tax rates); aggregate effects (lower GDP growth and lower income inequality); and welfare effects (lower dispersion of consumption across individuals and higher leisure levels, but also lower growth of future consumption). The social discount factor proves to be crucial for this third effect: a higher valuation of future generations' well-being requires a lower level of progressivity. Additionally, if tax revenues are used to provide a public good rather than just being discarded, a higher private valuation of such public goods will also call for a lower level of progressivity.

Inequality for Wage Earners and Self-Employed: Evidence from Panel Data

Published as an article in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2009, vol. 71, issue 4, pages 491-518.

Social Security, Education, Retirement and Growth

In this paper we analyze the effects of social security policies in an unfunded, earnings-related social security system on the incentives to education investment and voluntary retirement, on growth and on income inequality. Growth is endogenously driven by human capital investment, individuals differ in their innate (learning) ability at birth, and the pension scheme includes a minimum pension. More skilled individuals spend more on education, minimum pensions reduce low skill individuals' incentives to invest in human capital, there is no monotonic relationship between per capita growth and income inequality.

Igualdad de sacrificio: una aplicación para el IRPF en Bizkaia

En el presente trabajo pretendemos analizar la reforma fiscal llevada a cabo en el territorio histórico de Bizkaia en el ejercicio 2.006, y que entró en vigor el 1 de enero de 2.007. En concreto, se pretende analizar el efecto que tuvo sobre los contribuyentes, desglosándolo por niveles de renta. Con este objeto, planteamos la hipótesis de igualdad de sacrificio, y contrastamos su cumplimiento en los años 2.006 y 2.007, esto es, el último año previo a la entrada en vigor de la reforma y el primero en el que se aplico la nueva normativa. Los resultados muestran que, si bien en el año 2.006 no se cumplía el principio de igualdad de sacrificio, en el año 2.007 hay evidencia a favor de que sí se estuviese cumpliendo. Finalmente, se proponen formas funcionales impositivas alternativas a la empleada en la hipótesis de igualdad de sacrificio, observándose unos resultados similares a los obtenidos mediante la hipótesis de igualdad de sacrificio.

Income risk of EU coal-fired power plants after Kyoto

Coal-fired power plants may enjoy a significant advantage relative to gas plants in terms of cheaper fuel cost. Still, this advantage may erode or even turn into disadvantage depending on CO2 emission allowance price. This price will presumably rise in both the Kyoto Protocol commitment period (2008-2012) and the first post-Kyoto years. Thus, in a carbon-constrained environment, coal plants face financial risks arising in their profit margins, which in turn hinge on their so-called "clean dark spread". These risks are further reinforced when the price of the output electricity is determined by natural gas-fired plants' marginal costs, which differ from coal plants' costs. We aim to assess the risks in coal plants' margins. We adopt parameter values estimated from empirical data. These in turn are derived from natural gas and electricity markets alongside the EU ETS market where emission allowances are traded. Monte Carlo simulation allows to compute the expected value and risk profile of coal-based electricity generation. We focus on the clean dark spread in both time periods under different future scenarios in the allowance market. Specifically, bottom 5% and 10% percentiles are derived. According to our results, certain future paths of the allowance price may impose significant risks on the clean dark spread obtained by coal plants.

Does Immigration Raise Natives’ Income? National and Regional Evidence from Spain

How immigration affects the labor market of the host country is a topic of major concern for many immigrant-receiving nations. Spain is no exception following the rapid increase in immigrant flows experienced over the past decade. We assess the impact of immigration on Spanish natives’ income by estimating the net immigration surplus accruing at the national level and at high immigrant-receiving regions while taking into account the imperfect substitutability of immigrant and native labor. Specifically, using information on the occupational densities of immigrants and natives of different skill levels, we develop a mapping of immigrant-to-native self-reported skills that reveals the combination of natives across skills that would be equivalent to an immigrant of a given self-reported skill level, which we use to account for any differences between immigrant self-reported skill levels and their effective skills according to the Spanish labor market. We find that the immigrant surplus amounts to 0.04 percent of GDP at the national level and it is even higher for some of the main immigrant-receiving regions, such as Cataluña, Valencia, Madrid, and Murcia.

The Impact of Firm Level Contracting on Wage Levels and Inequality: Spain 1995-2002

This paper provides microeconomic evidence on the variation over time of the firm-specific wage premium in Spain from 1995 to 2002, and its impact on wage inequality. We make use of two waves of a detailed linked employer-employee data set. In addition, a new data set with financial information on firms is used for 2002 to control as flexibly as possible for differences in the performance of firms (aggregated at industry level). To our knowledge, there is no microeconomic evidence on the dynamics of the firm-specific wage premium for Spain or for any other country with a similar institutional setting. Our results suggest that there is a clear tendency towards centralization in the collective bargaining process in Spain over this seven-year period, that the firm-level contract wage premium undergoes a substantial decrease, particularly for women, and finally that the "centralization" observed in the collective bargaining process has resulted in a slight decrease in wage inequality.

Income Taxation and Growth in an OLG Economy: Does Aggregate Uncertainty Play any Role?

We analyze the effects of capital income taxation on long-run growth in a stochastic, two-period overlapping generations economy. Endogenous growth is driven by a positive externality of physical capital in the production sector that makes firms exhibit an aggregate technology in equilibrium. We distinguish between capital income and labor income, and between attitudes towards risk and intertemporal substitution of consumption. We show necessary and sufficient conditions such that i) increments in the capital income taxation lead to higher equilibrium growth rates, and ii) the effect of changes in the capital income tax rate on the equilibrium growth may be of opposite signs in stochastic and in deterministic economies. Such a sign reversal is shown to be more likely depending on i) how the intertemporal elasticity of substitution compares to one, and ii) the size of second- period labor supply. Numerical simulations show that for reasonable values of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, a sign reversal shows up only for implausibly high values of the second- period’s labor supply. The conclusion is that deterministic OLG economies are a good approximation of the effect of taxes on the equilibrium growth rate as in Smith (1996).

The interactive brain hypothesis

Enactive approaches foreground the role of interpersonal interaction in explanations of social understanding. This motivates, in combination with a recent interest in neuroscientific studies involving actual interactions, the question of how interactive processes relate to neural mechanisms involved in social understanding. We introduce the Interactive Brain Hypothesis (IBH) in order to help map the spectrum of possible relations between social interaction and neural processes. The hypothesis states that interactive experience and skills play enabling roles in both the development and current function of social brain mechanisms, even in cases where social understanding happens in the absence of immediate interaction. We examine the plausibility of this hypothesis against developmental and neurobiological evidence and contrast it with the widespread assumption that mindreading is crucial to all social cognition. We describe the elements of social interaction that bear most directly on this hypothesis and discuss the empirical possibilities open to social neuroscience. We propose that the link between coordination dynamics and social understanding can be best grasped by studying transitions between states of coordination. These transitions form part of the self-organization of interaction processes that characterize the dynamics of social engagement. The patterns and synergies of this self-organization help explain how individuals understand each other. Various possibilities for role-taking emerge during interaction, determining a spectrum of participation. This view contrasts sharply with the observational stance that has guided research in social neuroscience until recently. We also introduce the concept of readiness to interact to describe the practices and dispositions that are summoned in situations of social significance (even if not interactive). This latter idea links interactive factors to more classical observational scenarios.

Trends in Income and Price Elasticities of Transport Demand (1850-2010)

40 p.

Financial Futures Markets and Their Impact on the Real Economy in Middle and Low Income Countries

This project analyses the influence of the futures market on middle and low income countries. In it, I attempt to show that investments made by large investment funds in this market, as well as by certain pension plans, bring major consequences whose effects are more evident in less developed countries. The cornerstones of the work are as follows; to attempt to see the existing relationship between the commodity futures market and its underlying assets; analysing products such as wheat, rice and corn in-depth, because these are the most basic foodstuffs at a global level; to determine how an increase in trading in these markets can affect the lives of people in the poorest countries; to analyse investor concern regarding the consequences that their investments may have. Throughout the project we will see how large speculators use production forecasting models to determine the shortage of a commodity in order to take a position in the futures market to profit from it. In addition we will see how an increase in trading in this market causes an increase in the price of the underlying asset in the spot market. As for investor concern, I can say it is negligible, but the idea of running pension plans or investment funds that follow some social criteria has been welcomed by those interviewed, which makes me think that different legislation is possible. This legislation will only come into existence if it is demanded by the people. A fact that now becomes complicated because without a minimum financial basis, they cannot even know how the large investment funds trade with hunger in the world. The day when most people understand how large speculators profit from famine will be the day to put pressure on governments to begin to put limits on speculation. This makes financial awareness necessary in order to achieve a curb in excessive speculation.

Análisis de desigualdad económica en los municipios de Vizcaya

[ES] Este trabajo examina la evolución de la desigualdad en la productividad media de los municipios vizcaínos del País Vasco durante los años 1996 y 2010, tanto a nivel global en Vizcaya en su conjunto y como a nivel comarcal. Para este análisis se han utilizado los datos municipales de Udalmap con los que se han construido Curvas de Lorenz y se han computado índices de Gini y Theil a distintos niveles de agregación. Tanto a nivel global como comarcal se observa un incremento significativo en la desigualdad de dicho periodo. Además se comprueba que este aumento no ha sido homogéneo en las diferentes comarcas vizcaínas, habiendo entre ellas grandes diferencias en el aumento de la desigualdad durante estos años. Por último cabe remarcar que mediante el cálculo de Theil podemos concluir que la desigualdad proveniente de las diferencias de renta entre las comarcas es aproximadamente de un 3,3% del total de la desigualdad en ambos años, lo que nos muestra que la principal fuente de la desigualdad proviene de la desigual productividad de los municipios en cada comarca.

Desigualdad en la distribución de la renta en la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco. Análisis por comarcas (2001-2011)

[Es] Éste trabajo estudia la desigualdad en la distribución de la renta en la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco entre los años 2001 y 2011. Este periodo está dividido en dos sub-periodos, uno de bonanza económica entre 2001 y 2009 y otro de crisis económica y financiera entre 2009 y 2011. Se considera la renta disponible como variable y se toman los datos de UDALMAP y la encuesta de pobreza y desigualdades sociales (2012). Respaldado por un estudio teórico y referenciado de las herramientas para la medición de la desigualdad utilizadas en el trabajo, se analizan los estadísticos de los datos y se mide la distribución de la renta mediante el análisis de los principales y más reconocidos métodos para el estudio de la desigualdad como son la curva de Lorenz, el índice de Gini, la distribución inter-cuartil y el índice de Theil. Los resultados obtenidos indican que la desigualdad en la distribución de la renta en la CAPV (2001-2011) se ha reducido, si bien al analizar los sub-periodos no encontramos factores económicos o territoriales que expliquen con claridad las razones de la variación de la renta.

Igualdad de sacrificio: una aplicación para el IRPF español

Es bien sabido que el Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas (IRPF) es un impuesto progresivo (aumenta la proporción a pagar cuando aumenta la renta). Aun así es importante saber si el esfuerzo o la pérdida de utilidad que asume cada individuo en el pago del impuesto es el mismo, es decir, si se cumple el principio de igualdad de sacrificio. En este trabajo se plantea si el impuesto sobre la renta en España cumplió este principio en los años 2006 y 2007, y si la reforma fiscal que hubo en estos años nos acercó o alejó de su cumplimiento. La respuesta es que, en líneas generales, sí se cumple, suponiendo esta reforma una mejora relevante para la consecución de este objetivo.

Incidencia redistributiva de la política fiscal en la República Dominicana, 2000-2014

[ES]El trabajo es un análisis de la incidencia de la política fiscal llevada a cabo en la República Dominicana a lo largo del periodo 2000-2014, orientado a evaluar la progresividad o regresividad del sistema tributario y el gasto público así como sus efectos en la distribución del ingreso de la población dominicana. Con objeto de evaluar la acción fiscal se compara la distribución del ingreso antes y después del pago de impuestos y de las actuaciones de gasto, utilizando los indicadores de medidas de desigualdad y concentración tales como el índice de Gini, Kakwani, Concentración y Reybolds-Smolensky. El estudio considera algunas propuestas de política fiscal para lograr una mejora en la distribución del ingreso disponible a partir de las actuaciones de gasto público y un sistema tributario más progresivo.