Income Tax Reforms and Redistribution by Age Group: Evidence From Japan

Abstract

In the 1980s, tax policy changes mitigated the redistributive effect of income tax. The present study attempts to explore how different the redistributive effect of the income tax reforms in Japan is among age groups, using Japanese household microdata for the period 1984–2009. The following results are obtained. First, the overall redistributive effect was greatest for the elderly group, followed by the middle-aged group, and then the young group. Furthermore, this trend increased steadily over time. Second, the difference in total redistributive effects between the young and elderly increased owing to a large reduction in the base effect for the young.