The Impacts of Lottery on Household Income Distribution in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Hung-Chun Chen, 陳鴻鈞
• Other Authors: Ching-Yuan Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/99433997896778922970

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 經濟學系碩士班 === 93 === This study discusses the impacts of lottery on household income distribution in Taiwan. Compared with other literature, this thesis is distinguishing in the following three aspects : 1.I choose household, instead of individual, as the unit of analysis. 2.Empirical study is based upon the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure in Taiwan Area of Republic of China. This official survey started to collect households’ lottery prize and expenditure on lottery in the year of 2002. 3.The effects of lottery prize, expenditure on lottery, and distributed benefits of lottery on household income distribution are all considered to get a complete picture. Suits index, RSA index and Coefficient of Variation（CV）are adopted in this analysis. Suits index and RSA index has shown that the “lottery tax” is progressive in 2002 and 2003. The decomposition of CV shows that the lottery raises household income inequality. However this effect is mild and getting smaller from 2002 to 2003 as the lottery benefits are more efficiently distributed to households. In sum, whether lottery is a “poors’ tax” or a “richs’ tax” depends on how the lottery benefits are distributed.