BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

This chapter reviews the experience of one country from the European periphery, Spain, in the period 1960 to 1990. It addresses the possibilities to build up an operative welfare state after recent democratization¿past the golden age of economic growth in Western economies, and during the second globalization. The new context made it difficult to develop determined redistributive policies where they had been absent before. Economic distress, increasing capital mobility, and new tax ideas challenged the chances of progressive taxation. Furthermore, the recent dictatorship cast long-lasting shadows in the new representative institutions. This study of the Spanish experience is thus an analysis of time-specific and polity-specific constraints on redistribution, which other new democracies might have faced or could encounter in the near future., The author acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education's scholarship program Formacion del Profesorado Universitario and Research Project ECO2012-39169-C03-03.

Purpose: the purpose of this paper is to estimate tax evasion and its impact on progressivity, redistribution and the measurement of inequality, using microdata from the Spanish income tax for 2001-2004. Design/methodology/approach: the approach follows Feldman and Slemrod (2007) by exploiting the relation of charitable donations with the composition of income but introduces two methodological innovations, which could be useful for further studies: correction for sample selection with a Heckman two-step setting and the calculation of different evasion rates for top incomes with an interaction term. Findings: evasion in capital incomes was significant throughout these years. Financial incomes were reported at around 50-70 per cent of their real value, with the lowest estimates corresponding to the top decile. Revenues from fixed capital display similarly low compliance rates for the top 10 per cent. Tax evasion in self-employment incomes (direct assessment) is estimated at 20 per cent for 2001. Mostly because of a composition effect, this means that fraud was higher at the top of the income distribution, thus having a regressive impact. Inequality statistics and top income concentration estimates should, therefore, be revised upwards. Originality/value: this is the first paper to estimate the distributive impacts of tax evasion in Spain, and one of very few internationally., The author acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education's scholarship program Formación del Profesorado Universitario and the Research Project ECO2012-39169-C03-03.

The relationship between democracy, inequality, and redistribution has inspired extensive research, but consensus is still elusive. In order to contribute to this discussion, the author analyzes the Spanish case, where transition to democracy was accompanied by a comprehensive tax reform, aiming at increasing progressivity and revenue. But how effectively did it change the distribution of the tax burden? Was there a “fiscal revolution”? The results show that persistent regressivity (albeit decreasing) exacerbated income inequality, failing to attain convergence with more developed countries. The joint effect of the fiscal system, however, was slightly positive due to progressive social spending., The author acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education's scholarship program Formación del Profesorado Universitario and the Research Project ECO2012-39169-C03-03.

Este artículo analiza la evolución de la desigualdad de rentas en España durante la transición a la democracia, proponiendo un método para corregir la infra-declaración de ingresos en las Encuestas de Presupuestos Familiares. La contribución es doble: la metodología, basada en la discrepancia entre rentas y gastos y en el ajuste a Contabilidad Nacional, puede ser de utilidad para fuentes históricas similares en otros países. En segundo lugar, su aplicación resulta en una interpretación alternativa en este caso, al cambiar los niveles de desigualdad y también la tendencia observada. Si la literatura anterior había tratado de una sustancial mejora en la distribución, vinculada a la democracia, tras el ajuste efectuado la desigualdad en la renta disponible se muestra bastante persistente., This paper investigates the evolution of income inequality in Spain during its transition to democracy, suggesting a method for the correction of under-reporting of earnings and profits in the Household Budget Surveys’ data. The contribution is twofold: the methodological proposal, based on income-expenditure discrepancy and scaling-up to National Accounts, improves on previous work and can be useful for similar historical sources in other countries. Second, its application results in an alternative history of the distribution of income in this case, changing the levels and also the observed trend. Previous literature asserted a substantial equalisation, related to the democratisation process, while after the adjustment inequality in disposable income is shown to have been quite persistent., The author acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education’s
(FPU scholarship) and Research Project ECO2012-39169-C03-03.