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The purpose of Volume 10 is to collect together original research papers on fiscal policy (taxes and transfers) and inequality. The first two chapters of Volume 10 address methodological issues in tax progressivity measurement. John Creedy examines the questions of to what extent can redistribution be achieved using a structure of consumption taxes with different rates and exemptions. The paper shows that progressivity is maximized when only one commodity group is taxed, the commodity group with the largest total expenditure elasticity. Generalizing this result, Creedy shows that the tax rate should fall as the total elasticity falls. Creedy illustrates his approach using data on Australia’s indirect tax system. In Chapter 2 Lea Achdut, Yasser Awad, and Jacques Silber propose an alternative way to define tax progressivity as a function of marginal, not average tax rates. Changes in tax progressivity indices are usually defined in terms of changes in average tax rates, while changes in tax policy are usually stated in terms of changes in marginal tax rates. Thus, this paper fills a gap between theory and applied work. They apply their approach to study the progressivity of Israel’s National Insurance tax system.

Research on Economic Inequality Volume 12 is the outgrowth of University of Alabama Poverty and Inequality Conference, May 22–25, 2003. The motivation for the conference was to honor John P. Formby upon his retirement. The conference, funded by the University, was designed to bring together three groups of people; first, some of the most recognized scholars in the field, second, current and former colleagues of John Formby’s working in this field, and third, Dr. Formby’s former Ph.D. and post-doctoral students. Seventeen papers were presented, 11 of which are authored or co-authored by Dr. Formby’s former students. Peter Lambert and Yoram Amiel also participated in the conference. Dan Slottje, John Creedy, Shlomo Yitzhaki and Quentin Wodon did not attend but contributed papers.

It has long been recognised that cohort and cross‐sectional age‐earnings profiles differ. A standard procedure, which is quite reasonable in the absence of more information, is to obtain a cohort profile by simply adding the general rate of growth of real earnings to the growth of earnings associated with age, as shown by cross‐sectional data. Indeed, this would seem to be supported by the observation that cross‐sectional earnings profiles for a number of different years show a great deal of stability in their general shape. The main question considered here is whether cohort profiles can in fact be estimated in this simple way. A basic statistical model of age‐earnings profiles is described in the next section. The model is then applied to several groups of professional scientists, chemists and physicists in Britain and Australia, in the third section. The data were obtained from special surveys of career histories and are described briefly in the Appendix. A feature of the surveys is that sufficient data were collected to enable separate analyses of male and female scientists to be carried out.

In the last decade there has been considerable interest in the analysis of Trade Union behaviour, but surprisingly little discussion of the effect of tax changes on wage demands. Previous analyses have been limited by the use of simple tax structures. The discussion is extended by considering a multi‐rate tax system that can easily be applied to most countries. The effect on unions′ wage demands of eliminating the top marginal tax rate, while raising VAT, is examined in detail. It is shown that this policy can be expected to lead to an increase in the wage demands of all unions, producing a once‐and‐for‐all increase in nominal wages and unemployment.

Provides a framework for analysing the financing of state pensions with a wide range of policy options. Special attention is given, however, to two special cases: the first involves a means‐tested pension similar to the Australian scheme, while the second is similar to the basic pension (the first tier) in the UK. Emphasis is given to the implications of population ageing for pension finance in each scheme; a range of policies can be considered using specially designed computer programs.

This paper uses a lifetime income simulation model to examine the effects on inequality and progressivity of extending the time period over which income is measured. The income tax schedule typically displays increasing marginal rates, and there is a substantial amount of relative income mobility, along with a systematic variation in average incomes over the life cycle of the cohort. Simulations show that progressivity and inequality measures can often move in opposite directions, both over time for annual accounting periods, and as the length of period is gradually increased. The relationship between summary measures is complicated by the role of the aggregate tax ratio, in addition to the re‐ranking that can occur in the larger period framework. Some tax structures are found to increase in progressivity, while others show less progressivity, as the time period increases. Re‐ranking is found to increase as the accounting period increases: it is higher and increases more rapidly as the accounting period is increased for tax structures displaying more steeply rising rate structures.

Examines, using a simple model, the choice of appropriate contributions of taxes and fees used to finance higher education. A two‐period model is developed in which individuals in cohort invest in higher education in the first period, and the interdependences between educational choice and the tax system are considered. The implications of majority voting and the maximization of a social welfare function, allowing for a trade‐off between equity and efficiency, are examined in progressive and proportional tax systems.

Although there has been a great deal of discussion of the relative merits of alternative income maintenance schemes, the precise relationships between benefit levels and tax rates required are not usually examined in detail. The purpose of the present article is, therefore, to provide comparable results for a number of systems so that the “trade‐offs” involved can easily be examined and compared. The majority of results are quite general, and do not depend on the form of the distribution of gross income, but in common with other analyses it has not been possible to allow for incentive effects. Some of the schemes have been examined elsewhere, but the results presented below provide a much more unified and simplified set of comparisions. While fairly simple results may be obtained for the relationships between taxes and benefits, it is much more difficult to provide convenient expressions for the dispersion of post‐transfer income. However, a method of calculating the coefficient of variation of post‐transfer income is presented in the final section of this article.

Introduction The literature on earnings change has increasingly suggested that the key processes generating earnings inequality are those operating within the firm. However, there has been little empirical work on these phenomena, largely reflecting data deficiencies. Very few data‐sets on earnings contain information about internal processes and those which do often measure them narrowly. For example, most surveys of labour mobility define it either as movement between firms or as such movement plus major, once‐and‐for‐all changes of work type.