Abstract
Although not development policies per se, taxation and social policy, as amongst the biggest line items in terms of expenditure and revenue in the state budget, have a very important impact on the distribution of welfare both across families of different incomes and types and across space. Since the early 1990s in Ireland there has been a growing emphasis on spatially targeting policy options in the area of poverty and social exclusion. For example, the National Anti-Poverty Strategy (1997) has a spatial dimension in two of its five priority themes: disadvantaged urban areas and marginalised rural communities. The National Spatial Strategy (2002) presents a national programme of development actions to reduce inter-regional inequality. Within these frameworks, local Partnerships have been utilised as a mechanism to target resources at poverty “blackspots” (Haase and Foley 2009).
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Notes
- 1.
Earlier versions of the survey were carried out in the 1950’s, but only covered urban areas.
- 2.
The excluded categories are those who, although capable of work, do not seek employment including those in education.
- 3.
For a period from the late 1970s to mid 1990s, there existed a small earnings related component in Unemployment and Disability Benefits. Subsequently, a component has been retained so that benefits are adjusted to limit the replacement rate of those with very low previous earnings. Maternity benefits continue to be earnings related subject to maximum and minimum payments.
- 4.
See Callan et al. (1996) and Callan and Nestor (2000) for a description of these means tests.
- 5.
See O’Donoghue and Sutherland (1999).
- 6.
Capital gains and bequests are taxed separately.
- 7.
Björklund and Palme 1997 use a similar decomposition method but instead use the I0, Theil L and I1 Theil T indices.
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O’Donoghue, C., Morrissey, K., Hayes, P., Loughrey, J., Banks, J., Hynes, S. (2013). The Spatial Distribution of Household Disposable Income. In: O'Donoghue, C., Ballas, D., Clarke, G., Hynes, S., Morrissey, K. (eds) Spatial Microsimulation for Rural Policy Analysis. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30026-4_11
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