On the Targeting and Redistributive Efficiencies of Alternative Transfer Instruments

The distributional characteristic provides an attractive alternative to conventional approaches used to evaluate the targeting performance of transfer programs. We decompose it into two components that are useful both conceptually and empirically; one capturing the targeting efficiency of the instrument, the other its redistributive efficiency. The redistributive index can also be generalized for the purposes of evaluating the degree of progressivity in tax-benefit structures. For illustrative purposes, we present an empirical application of the distributional characteristic and its decomposition using Mexican data. The welfare gains from using categorical targeting and means testing reflect improvements in redistributive and targeting efficiency respectively