Fiscal Policy, Poverty and Redistribution in Latin America

Nora Lustig Tulane University

Nonresident Fellow CGD and IAD

Inter-American DialogueWashington, DC, June 4, 2013

LATAM IS THE MOST UNEQUAL REGION IN THE WORLDGini Coefficient by Region (in %), 2004

(Ferreira and Ravallion, 2008)

32.233.6

38.9 38.9 39.1

44.7

53.2

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

45.0

50.0

55.0

60.0

High Income Europe andCentral Asia

South Asia North Africaand the

Middle East

East Asia andthe Pacific

Sub-SaharanAfrica

Latin Americaand the

Caribbean

Gin

i coe

ffici

ent

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Declining income inequality by country: 2000-2010 (Annual average change in Gini in %)

Poverty: 1992-2010(Headcount Ratio in %)

5

• Why has inequality declined?–Declining inequality of hourly labor

income–Larger and more progressive

transfers–Lower dependency ratios

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www.commitmentoequity.org

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• Special issue: Lustig, Pessino and Scott. Editors. “Fiscal Policy, Poverty and Redistribution in Latin America,”Public Finance Review (forthcoming)

– Argentina: Nora Lustig and Carola Pessino– Bolivia: George Gray Molina, Wilson Jimenez, Veronica Paz

and Ernesto Yañez– Brazil: Sean Higgins and Claudiney Pereira– Mexico: John Scott– Peru: Miguel Jaramillo– Uruguay: Marisa Bucheli, Nora Lustig, Maximo Rossi and

Florencia Amabile

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Standard Fiscal Incidence Analysis• Pre-tax and benefits incomes

• Allocators of taxes and benefits– personal income and consumption taxes– social spending: cash transfers and in-kind transfers

(education and health)– Consumption subsidies

• Post-tax and benefits incomes

• Countries (yr of Survey): Argentina (2009), Bolivia (2007), Brazil (2009), Guatemala (2009), Mexico (2008), Peru (2009), Uruguay (2009), Paraguay (2010)

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Results

• Wide variation among countries in:– policy choices (or outcomes of

political processes?)–impact of those choices on income

redistribution and poverty reduction

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Government size varies greatly in Latin America

• Government spending is around 40 percent of GDP in Argentina and Brazil—similar to that of some European nations with larger welfare states• …while it is only around 20 percent

in Mexico and Peru

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Budget Size and CompositionPrimary and Social Spending as % of GDP

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Redistributive Impact Heterogeneous

• Taxes and transfers reduce inequality by nontrivial amounts in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, less so in Mexico, and relatively little in Bolivia and Peru

• Bolivia and Uruguay start from similar Market Income Gini’s but end in different places with Final Income

• Brazil has the highest Market Income Gini by several orders of magnitude but ends up with a lower Final Income Gini than Bolivia and Peru

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Gini Before and After Taxes, Transfers, Subsidies and Free Government Services

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Direct Taxes Progressive but Underutilized

• Personal income tax varies from around five percent of GDP in Uruguay to nearly zero in Bolivia

• In all countries in which they exist, direct taxes are progressive, but because direct taxes are a small percentage of GDP almost everywhere, their redistributive impact is small

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Gini Before and After Direct Taxes

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Cash Transfers Powerful Poverty-Reducing Mechanism only when Targeted and of

Significant Magnitude• Cash transfers reduce extreme poverty by

more than 60 percent in Uruguay and Argentina…

….but only by 7 percent in Peru, which spends too little on cash transfers

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Headcount: Before and After Cash Transfers

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• Bolivia spends five times more in cash transfers than Peru (as a share of GDP) but…

…because funds are not targeted to the poor, the amount of redistribution and poverty reduction has been limited: it is only slightly higher than in Peru

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• Peru’s Juntos, although quite effective because of its fine targeting, achieves very limited poverty and inequality reduction because the scale of the program is small: –coverage of extreme poor is below

60 percent and per capita transfer is low (compared to poverty gap)

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Coverage of Direct Cash Transfers

Bolivia Brazil Peru0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

87.7%93.3%

57.7%

83.2%

73.1%

41.9%

67.8%

29.2%

15.5%

Poor<2.5 2.5<=Poor<4

Non poor

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“Leakages” of Direct Cash Transfers(Percent going to poor and nonpoor)

Bolivia Brazil Peru0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

25.2%16.8%

46.9%

12.8%

9.7%

24.0%

62.0%

73.5%

29.1%

Non poor2.5<=Poor<4Poor<2.5

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Indirect Taxes and Poverty

• In Brazil and Bolivia, indirect taxes wipe out most of the effect of direct transfers, and poverty is almost the same after as before taxes and cash transfers.

• In contrast, in Mexico, indirect taxes and subsidies reduce poverty further, because exemptions and informality allow the poor to pay little in the form of indirect taxe

Headcount Ratio Before and After Indirect Taxes

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Gini Before and After Government Services Valued at Cost

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Fiscal Incidence Indicators: Winners and Losers

Who bears the burden of taxes and receives the benefits from cash transfers? • Fiscal incidence by decile and

socio-economic groups

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Incidence of Taxes and Cash TransfersNet Change in Income after Direct and Indirect Taxes and Transfers by Decile

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

-20%

-15%

-10%

-5%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

BoliviaBrazilMexicoPeruUruguay

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In sum: Bolivia, Mexico and Peru • Although Bolivia spends five times more than

Peru in cash transfers, because they are not really targeted to the poor they achieve little in terms of poverty reduction

• In contrast, Peru’s cash transfers are very well-targeted but the size of the flagship program is small

• In Mexico, the limitation is similar to Peru’s but less markedly so

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In sum: Brazil The largely positive redistributive picture of Brazil has three main problems:• A substantial portion of cash transfers benefit the

nonpoor• Indirect taxes weigh heavily on the market income

poor and wipe out the redistributive and poverty reducing effect of cash transfers

• About 16 percent of Brazilian social spending in tertiary education goes to the richest five percent of the population with incomes above US$50 per day.

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In sum: Argentina

• Poverty reduction and redistribution through fiscal policy are the highest in Argentina. Is Argentina a model of redistributive policies? – Increasingly relied on redistribution through cash

transfers => pension moratorium– Pension moratorium: good for elderly women bad for

incentives (informality) and problems of unfairness– Fiscal sustainability called into question: source of

revenues such as inflation tax and international reserves are problematic

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THANK YOU

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