Non-Cash Benefits and the Distribution of Economic Welfare

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").non-cash benefits, income distribution

Non-cash Benefits and the Distribution of Economic Welfare

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”).

incite Change | Change insight

This was the theme of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) 2015 National Meeting and Conference, hosted by Kansas State University, March 23 – 28, 2015. The call for papers addressing this theme noted: “When we teach, design and serve, we incite change. When we observe change it informs our insight; deepening our understanding, broadening application of acts, processes, representations and the results of creating difference. How do you incite change? How do you change insight? Our CELA 2015 theme and questions might appear dichotomous or formulaic given the conventions of printed text but we perceive the words and ideas as constantly cyclic and representing a single construct rather than opposite sides of the coin. This document contains accepted, peer-reviewed papers which address the theme: incite Change| Change insight within the teaching, creative inquiry, research, outreach, and practice of landscape architecture, its allied arts and sciences. Each paper presented was reviewed by experts in the respective area of concern and authors of accepted papers worked with the editor to revise and re-submit their manuscripts. The final products of this rigorous, blind, peer review process are presented here. This document represents a beginning, a change in the development of the discourse on creative inquiry within the discipline of landscape architecture. The papers suggest that this discipline may indeed be changing in how it teaches, researches, and serves its students and its larger community of concern. It is our hope that future CELA conferences continue the practice of a “special conference theme publication”. We also hope that the papers presented here change insight, and incite change. The editor and the authors welcome your feedback and inquiries.https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1003/thumbnail.jp

Flint Hills Farm Ponds: Good, Bad, But Rarely Ugly

Introduction: Stand atop any ridge in the Flint Hills of Kansas in late spring and look about. The fires are finished, the prairie is a new and vibrant green, and the black and russet daubs that amble in the distance are the cattle returned to summer range. Regardless of the direction you gaze from that cuesta, you will likely see at least one farm or stock pond. These ponds, an estimated quarter million of them in Kansas, built by farmers and ranchers over the last hundred years or so, provide water for cattle, but so much more

Inequality and the Crisis: The Distributional Impact of Tax Increases and Welfare and Public Sector Pay Cuts

The economic crisis impacts directly on the distribution of income via unemployment and private sector wages, but the way policy responds in seeking to control soaring fiscal deficits is also central to its distributional consequences. Having sketched out the background in terms of inequality trends during Ireland’s boom and the channels through which the recession affects different parts of the income distribution, this paper investigates the distributional impact of the government’s policy response with respect to direct tax, social welfare and public sector pay using the SWITCH tax-benefit model. This provides empirical evidence relevant to future policy choices as efforts to reduce the fiscal deficit continue.

THE GENDER IMPACT OF IRISH BUDGETARY POLICY. ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES, October 2018

In this report, we make use of the analytical approach previously developed by the ESRI (Keane et al., 2014). We then provide an up-to-date picture of the overall gender impacts of budgetary policy from the start of the recession (2008) to 2018. This period is split into an austerity period, running from 2008 to 2012, and a recovery period, running from 2012 to 2018. This allows us to identify how the gender impact of Irish tax-benefit policy has evolved from austerity to recovery. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we embed this analytical capacity within SWITCH, the ESRI’s tax-benefit model. This ensures that, in future, gender impact assessment of budgets can be routinely undertaken by government departments3 and by ESRI researchers. This can be done both in the development of options prior to the budget, to help gender-proof policy reforms, and in the assessment of the impact of policies actually chosen in the budget. The project, therefore, not only helps to answer questions about the impact of past policy but will also serve to ensure that the need for gender impact assessment of tax and welfare policies – as identified, inter alia, in the Programme for Government (2016) – can be met more readily in future

BUDGET PERSPECTIVES 2020, PAPER 2. ASSESSING THE DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPACT OF BUDGETARY POLICY: THE ROLE OF BENCHMARKS AND INDEXATION. June 2019

This paper examines the potential role for increasing social welfare rates, along with tax credits and bands, in line with price or wage inflation – a process known as indexation. Ireland currently has a default policy of no increases in line with inflation, with ad hoc changes instead announced on Budget day. The recent ‘Pensions Roadmap’ commits to ‘a process whereby future changes in pension rates of payment are explicitly linked to changes in the consumer price index and average wages’, and the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection has also announced the intention to examine an index-linked system for the wider welfare system. In light of these discussions, the paper examines how Ireland compares to other countries with regard to indexation. It also examines the impact that different indexation options have on income inequality and poverty over time. Both nominal freezes in taxes and social welfare rates and increases in line with price inflation result in an increase in poverty and income inequality in the longer run. Indexation in line with wage inflation, however, helps keep poverty rates and income inequality more constant in the longer run. Indexation would, of course, represent a cost to the Exchequer – for Budget 2020 we estimate that indexation of the tax-benefit system would cost in the region of €462 million, while indexation in line with average wage increases would cost in excess of €1.2 billion

Pension Policy: New Evidence on Key Issues. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 14 NOVEMBER 2009

Pension systems world-wide face major long-term challenges in providing adequate incomes in retirement to an ageing population. Ireland is no exception. While at present there are more than five people of working age for each person of pension age, by 2061, assuming pension age is unchanged, there would be no more than two. Defined benefit (DB) schemes have come under particular pressure, and a shift from defined benefit to defined contribution (DC) schemes has been evident in Ireland as in other countries. In part, this reflects the fact that DB schemes tend to place the risk arising from increased longevity on the scheme funder, whereas DC schemes limit the liability of the funder but put a greater risk on the pension-holder. The government’s Green Paper on Pensions explored how the Irish pensions system might best be reformed to address the challenges of providing adequate pensions at an affordable cost in the context of increased longevity. In doing so, it raised a number of key questions for consideration. This study is designed to provide new evidence on some of these questions, relating mainly to the structuring of tax incentives to encourage improved coverage of private pensions. Earlier this year the government introduced a “Pension-related Deduction” – more commonly called the public service pension levy. We examine the nature of this policy instrument, and how it is to be interpreted

TAX REFORM: SELECTED ISSUES. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 12 OCTOBER 2009

The report of the Commission on Taxation (2009) documents an agenda for the reform of taxation at a time when the public finances are under very severe pressure. It would undoubtedly be easier to reform taxation at a time when the overall tax take could be reduced, rather than when gains and losses must balance out in a revenue-neutral fashion. It is still more difficult if reforms have to be introduced at a time when, for macroeconomic reasons, the overall tax take must rise.1 But even when facing the task of increasing revenues, there are choices to be made between increasing rates on the existing base, and broadening the base, without an increase in rates. As Poterba (2009) stated in this year’s Geary Lecture, a touchstone result in public finance is that …the distortionary cost of a tax system depends not on the level of tax rates but on the square of tax rates.2 This makes a strong argument for base-broadening rather than rate increases, which informs much of the report of the Commission on Taxation

BASE-BROADENING TAX REFORMS. ESRI Research Bulletin 2010/2/4

At given levels of economic activity, increases in tax revenue require either higher tax rates or a wider tax base. Higher tax rates cause greater distortions to economic decisions, so widening of the tax base is preferred on efficiency grounds. But considerations of fairness and ability to pay are also relevant, as pointed out by Geary Lecturer, James Poterba: “There is often a trade-off between an efficient tax system which has a very broad base and low rates and a tax system which ....does not put substantial burdens on those with relatively low ability to pay”. (Poterba, 2010, p. 135) The balance between these considerations cannot be decided on a purely theoretical basis: careful analysis of particular proposals for widening of the tax base or changes in tax structure are needed. Recent research under the Institute’s programme for Taxation, Welfare and Pensions has helped to clarify the impact of alternative base-widening options in three areas: property tax, the tax treatment of pension contributions, and the tax treatment of child benefit. Brief summaries of the findings of each of these pieces of research are given here, and links to the full publications are to be found at the end of this article