This paper develops new decompositions of the redistributive, vertical and horizontal effects of the fiscal system, revealing the contributions of different tax and benefit instruments. This new methodology brings together two widely acknowledged approaches in the study of income inequality and...

The last 20 years have seen a significant evolution in the literature on horizontal inequity (HI) and have generated two major and "rival" methodological strands, namely, classical HI and reranking. We propose in this paper a class of ethically flexible tools that integrate these two strands....

International comparisons of horizontal inequity in health have recently become one of the most pertinent issues in health economics. Japan has not been included in these international comparisons. This omission is rectified in this paper, which focuses on Japan. Moreover, we consider its...

Recently van De Van, Creedy and Lambert (2001) and Lambert and Urban (2005) have reconsidered the original Aronson, Johnson and Lambert (1994) decomposition of the redistributive effect in order to properly evaluate personal income tax reforms, when sequential income groups do not concern exact...

According to Kakwani and Lambert (1998), an equitable income tax should respect three axioms related to each taxpayer’s tax liability, average tax rate and post-tax income: whenever taxation determines unequal tax treatments among equals or modifies pre-tax ordering, it influences the...

Urban and Lambert (2005, 2008) present an exhaustive summary and an in-depth discussion of the literature contributions about the decomposition of the redistributive effect of a tax (RE). The authors discuss the indexes available in the literature for the potential vertical effect (V), the loss...

We propose a general cost-of-inequality approach that jointly integrates horizontal and vertical equity criteria in the assessment of poverty alleviation programs, with the strength of each criterion being captured through its own inequity-aversion parameter. This contrasts with the assessment...