Economic Policy Visualization

Redistribution · Maps

Dr. Matthias Schnetzer

November 25, 2024

The rise of the welfare state…

Source: Chancel et al. (2022)

…and the demise of income taxation?

Source: Chancel et al. (2022)

Government revenue and expenditure in Austria

Source: WIFO (2023)

Taxation

Taxation in Austria

• Income tax (wages and pensions, self-employed income, capital gains, property income, etc.)
• Corporate income tax
• Value added tax, alcohol tax (liquors), beer tax, wine tax, tobacco tax
• Carbon tax, Mineral oil tax, energy tax, natural gas tax, coal tax
• Motor vehicle tax, standardised consumption tax (one-off tax on motor vehicles)

• Property tax
• Real estate transfer tax
• Insurance tax
• Advertizing tax, digital tax (on online ad banners)
• Air transport tax
• Municipal tax

Composition of primary income in Austria

Composition of tax revenue by private households

Tax burden on employment across the OECD

Note: Tax wedge is defined as the ratio between the amount of taxes paid by an average single worker and the total labour cost for the employer.
Source: OECD

Tax burden on wealth across the OECD

Note: Tax on property is defined as recurrent and non-recurrent taxes on the use, ownership or transfer of property in % of total tax revenues.
Source: OECD

Inheritances as potential source of tax revenue

Source: Grünberger et al. (2024)

Revenue potential of inheritance taxation

Source: Grünberger et al. (2024)

Redistributive effects of taxation

Note: Only economically active population.
Source: WIFO (2023)

Transfers

Composition of social monetary and in-kind benefits

Monetary benefits in red, and in-kind benefits in blue colors.

Monetary social benefits account for roughly one quarter.

Distribution of transfers

Note: Provision = allowances for family, care, etc.;
Insurance = unemployment benefits, etc.; Welfare = basic and housing benefits, etc.;
Source: WIFO (2023)

Income redistribution in Austria

Source: WIFO (2023)

Income redistribution across OECD countries

Note: Countries are sorted by absolute reduction in Gini coefficient
Source: OECD IDD

Maps

Projections

Choose a map projection! For instance, {giscoR} by Eurostat provides maps in the following three projections. Check coordinates for axis limits at https://epsg.io.

The {sf} package

The sf (simple features) package deals with spatial geometries. These features have a geometry describing where on Earth the feature is located, and they have attributes, which describe other properties.

Plot a map

europe_3035 |> select(CNTR_ID, NAME_ENGL, geometry) |> slice_head(n = 3)

Simple feature collection with 3 features and 2 fields
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 3618229 ymin: 1900590 xmax: 5257241 ymax: 2889034
Projected CRS: ETRS89-extended / LAEA Europe
  CNTR_ID NAME_ENGL                       geometry
1      AL   Albania POLYGON ((5148385 2216599, ...
2      AT   Austria POLYGON ((4832035 2857837, ...
3      AD   Andorra POLYGON ((3640254 2192873, ...

europe_3035 |> ggplot() + 
  geom_sf(fill = "midnightblue", linewidth = .1, color = "white") + 
  coord_sf(xlim = c(2377294, 7453440), ylim = c(1313597, 5628510), expand = F)

Bibliography

Chancel, Lucas/Piketty, Thomas/Saez, Emmanuel/Zucman, Gabriel (2022). World inequality report 2022. World Inequality Lab.

Grünberger, Klaus/Derndorfer, Judith/Schnetzer, Matthias (2024). Erbschaften in Österreich: Eine Modellschätzung Intergenerationeller Vermögenstransfers Bis 2050. Wirtschaft Und Gesellschaft, 50(1), 21–41. DOI: 10.59288/wug501.230

WIFO (2023). Umverteilung durch den staat in Österreich 2019 und entwicklungen von 2005 bis 2019. Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung.