Fiscal Incidence When Both Individual Welfare and Family Structure Matter: The Case of Subsidization of Home-Care for the Elderly
34 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2012
Date Written: February 13, 2012
Abstract
How should we construct incidence indexes for children and parents in the case of public subsidies for home-care of the elderly? What is the nature of a fiscal incidence index on a budgetary basis versus a theoretically more satisfactory index that is welfare-based? Can we find budgetary based measures that will serve as a proxy for incidence in welfare terms? Does the structure of the family including the altruism of children affect incidence indexes? How should fiscal shifting of the subsidy for home care paid to the parents be defined, in budgetary or in welfare terms, and what does simulation tell us about the distribution of benefits between the generations?
Keywords: home care of the elderly, price-subsidy, fiscal incidence index, non-cooperative family, cooperative family, income pooling, altruism, benefit shifting, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Medicaid, simulation
JEL Classification: H220, I180, D130
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation