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Une histoire d'extrémités: l'inégalité des revenus au Canada dans les années 80 et 90.
Author(s) -
Frenette Marc,
Green David A.,
Milligan Kevin
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
canadian journal of economics/revue canadienne d'économique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1540-5982
pISSN - 0008-4085
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.00429.x
Subject(s) - economics , economic inequality , income distribution , income inequality metrics , inequality , distribution (mathematics) , gross income , income shares , state income tax , survey data collection , income tax , demographic economics , adjusted gross income , labour economics , public economics , tax reform , mathematical analysis , statistics , mathematics
. We present new evidence on levels and trends in after‐tax income inequality in Canada between 1980 and 2000. We argue that existing data sources may miss changes in the tails of the income distribution, and that many of the changes in the income distribution have been in the tails. For this reason, we turn to an alternative source. In particular, we construct data on after‐tax and transfer income using Census files augmented with predicted taxes based on information available from administrative tax data. Using these data, we find that Canadian after‐tax inequality levels are substantially higher than has been previously recognized, primarily because income levels are lower at the bottom of the distribution than in commonly used survey data. We also find larger long‐term increases in after‐tax income inequality and far more variability over the economic cycle. This raises interesting questions about the role of the tax and transfer system in mitigating both trends and fluctuations in market income inequality.