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Dissatisfaction with the current federal tax system is fostering serious interest in several tax reform plans such as a value-added tax (VAT), a flat tax, and a national retail sales tax. Recently, one of the former Republican presidential candidates, Herman Cain, initiated a 999 tax plan. As illustrated on Cain’s official website, the 999 plan intends to replace current federal taxes with a 9% business flat tax, a 9% individual flat tax, and a 9% national sales tax. We examine the distributional effects of the 999 tax plan, as well as the current system it intends to replace, under both annual income and lifetime income approaches. Global measures of progressivity and bootstrap-t confidence intervals suggest that the current federal tax system is progressive while Cain’s 999 tax plan is regressive under the annual income approach. Under the lifetime income approach, both the current federal tax system and Cain’s 999 tax plan show progressivity. However, the current federal tax system is more progressive. The findings in this study suggest that Cain’s 999 tax plan should be considered more seriously and further analysis of the 999 tax plan is warranted.

The problems involved in trying to measure the effect of the budget on the distribution of lifetime income are reviewed. A comparison is made of the likely differences between the stylised facts of annual incidence studies and the possible lifetime impact of the budget. Annual studies show that redistribution to the poor occurs, primarily as a result of pensions. It is likely that the lifetime incidence of the budget is broadly neutral since pensions will not accrue mainly to the lowest deciles when a lifetime income perspective is taken.

The last 60 years have seen Australia and the United Kingdom diverge, both socially and economically. This paper considers how the widening social gap between the two countries is reflected by their respective redistributive systems. The analysis is based upon two microsimulation procedures – one static and the other dynamic – both of which are used to consider the probable distributional effects that would arise if elements of the Australian and UK tax and benefits systems were exchanged. The static microsimulation analysis presented suggests that comparisons based purely upon cross-sectional survey data are affected by population heterogeneity, which tend to overstate the redistributive effect of the Australian transfer system relative to the UK. Nevertheless, the dynamic microsimulations suggest that, on balance, the Australian transfer system is more redistributive than the UK system, and reflects a greater concern for redistribution between households. The UK system, in contrast, reflects a greater concern for redistribution through the life course.

The purpose of this study is to use a lifetime income measure to evaluate the long-run housing affordability for an understudied cohort of households in the literature – the millennials. The authors do this in the context of Malaysia, measuring long-run affordability for four housing types across geographic locations and income distributions.

This study calculates a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) using data on house prices and household incomes. Essentially a ratio of predicted lifetime incomes to house prices, the HAI is computed for four common housing types in Malaysia from 2005 to 2016 and for six states in the country. The HAI is also compared across four income percentiles.

The analysis reveals varying patterns of housing affordability among different states in Malaysia. Housing affordability has declined since 2010, with most housing types being unaffordable for millennial-led households with the lowest income. Housing is most affordable for those in the highest income bracket, although even here, there are pockets of unaffordable housing as well.

Based on the findings, this study proposes three targeted interventions to improve housing affordability for Malaysian millennials.

This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the long-run housing affordability of Malaysian millennial-led households based on both geographic location and income distribution. The millennial population is understudied in the housing affordability literature, making this study a valuable contribution to the field.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the long-run housing affordability of Malaysia over time for households at various income levels and to demonstrate how short- and long-run affordability measures can reach contradicting conclusions.

In this study, a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) for Malaysia was constructed for the sample period 1995 to 2014, using data from house prices and household incomes. The HAI was also modified to compute a mortgage affordability index (MAI) to account for intergenerational transfers.

The results show that households at the 25th income percentile cannot afford any of the four dwelling types in Malaysia. For households at the 40th income percentile and the median income levels, high-rise and terrace housing are affordable. However, significant downward trends in HAI and MAI are documented beginning 2009, which indicates increasing housing stress for households at or below the median income. The short-run affordability measure represented by the median multiple (MM) indicator showed bleaker conclusion for housing affordability, with all dwelling types considered unaffordable over the entire sample period

On the basis of the empirical results, this paper provided several long-term proposals to ameliorate the housing affordability problem in Malaysia.

With the MM ratio being the official affordability measure reported for Malaysia, this study introduces the nation’s first long-run housing affordability measure. It is hoped that this long-run measure will achieve widespread adoption in Malaysia. Given the deteriorating long-term affordability, this study offers several possible long-term solutions.

The economic reality of the 1990s in Europe forced the labor markets to become more flexible. Using a consistent comparative dataset for 14 countries, the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), we explore the degree of earnings mobility and inequality across Europe, and the role of labor market institutions in understanding the cross-national differences in earnings mobility. We study the degree of rank mobility and the degree of mobility as equalizer of long-term earnings. The country ranking in long-term earnings inequality is similar with the country ranking in annual inequality, which is a sign of limited long-term equalizing mobility within countries with higher levels of annual inequality. In long-term earnings inequality, Denmark renders the most mobile earnings distribution with the second highest equalizing effect. The only disequalizing mobility in a lifetime perspective is found in Portugal. With respect to the relationship between earnings mobility and earnings inequality, we find a significant negative association both in the short and the long run. Based on the rankings in long-term Fields mobility and long-term inequality, Denmark is expected to have the lowest lifetime earnings inequality in Europe, followed by Finland, Austria, and Belgium. The Mediterranean countries (Spain and Portugal) are expected to have the highest long-term inequality. With respect to the institutional factors that may be related to earnings mobility, we bring evidence that the deregulation in the labor and product markets, the degree of unionization, the degree of corporatism and the spending on ALMPs are positively associated with earnings mobility.

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.

The fundamental problem of designing a wide scope general revenue tax can be reduced to the selection of the base used for administering the tax. Our current personal income tax is a hybrid version of a tax assessed on the basis of a tax unit's annual income receipts. An alternative to an income‐based tax that has received much theoretical treatment but little actual application is an expenditure‐based tax. An expenditure tax (also called a consumption tax or cash flow tax in the context of this paper) differs from an income tax in that it exempts net saving and investment from the tax base. Though the details of a consumption tax design are discussed more fully elsewhere in this paper, the tax base of an expenditure tax is roughly determined by subtracting net savings from gross receipts (including wages, tips, salaries, income from investments, interests, etc.). Withdrawals from savings constitute dissavings and are appropriately included in net savings. The cash flow tax, with wealth transfers deductible to the donor and included in the tax base of the recipient, would be a tax on an individual's standard of living. Similar to the present income tax standard deduction, some universal credit or exemption for a small level of consumption could be allowed.

This paper aims to improve the housing affordability by measuring the housing affordability in a resource-rich economy and studying the impact of implementing new policies.

This paper seeks to test the impact of new policies introduced to the Kuwaiti housing market to improve affordability. In 2008, the Kuwaiti parliament introduced two policies: a tax on empty lands and, forbidding companies to own or develop residential lands or houses.

By constructing the housing affordability index and the price-to-income multiplier using observations from 2004 until 2017, it has been found that affordability has worsened over time regardless of the new policies introduced in 2008. Housing in Kuwait became “severely unaffordable” (equivalent to London in the UK, San Diego in USA and Toronto in Canada).

Even with its unique condition, as a rich country, small population and availability of white land and other resources, the affordability worsened over time. Introducing new policies without solving the central issue of housing supply challenges seems not worth it. This paper is the first of its kind on the Kuwait housing market, and it provides a valuable foundation for future research on this market and similar markets in the region.