Brown Bag Seminar: François Maniquet

(Un)fair Tax-benefit Systems: Evidence from Selected OECD Countries

François MANIQUET, CORE

Joint work with Dirk Neumann, OECD

Building on the theory of fair labor income taxation recently developed by Fleurbaey and Maniquet, we assess (un)fairness of tax schemes in a selected sample of OECD countries. We begin by presenting the justification and construction of Equal Minimal Well-Being curves, the key ingredient to measure social welfare in this theory. Equipped with this tool, we propose two applications. First, for each country in our sample, we identify the interval of earning levels at which tax schemes need to be reformed to enhance social welfare. Second, we compare social welfare among countries. In both applications, we determine how the conclusions depend on the values of three key ethical parameters.