Thank you for the positive comments on my Equity paper.
At least one economist agrees with your analysis, and I suspect there are
many others. James Poterba argues that household expenditures are a better
measure of wealth than household income for the reasons you describe (James
Poterba, "Reexaminations of Tax Incidence: Lifetime Incidence and the
Distributional Burden of Excise Taxes," The American Economic Review, Vol.
79, No. 2, May 1989, p. pp. 325-330.). I beleive that this information can
be extracted from BLS data, but may be more difficult to obtain from other
sources and other countries.
However, I doubt that this would change the basic finding that
transportation expenditures tend to be a greater portion of household
income/expenditures/wealth for lower-income households (i.e., they tend to
be regressive), and that measures which improve transportation options such
as walking and public transit can particularly benefit lower-income
households.
For additional discussion of this issue by geographic location I recommend
"Driven to Spend; The Impact of Sprawl on Household Transportation
Expenses," by Barbara McCann, available from the STPP (www.transact.org),
2000.
Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.vtpi.org
At 02:34 PM 3/29/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear list members:
>
>In his excellent paper: "Evaluating Transportation Equity"
>(http://www.vtpi.org/equity.doc), Todd Litman (Victoria Transport Policy
>Institute) makes the point Transportation expenditures are highest as a
>portion of income for lower-income households, indicating that automobile
>dependency is a financial burden to the poor.
>
>However, working with the BLS statistics of household expenditure on
>transportation by income class
>(http://www.bls.gov/csx/1999/share/income.pdf), I find a problem when I want
>to compare these data with similar data from other countries. What seems odd
>to me is the fact that for the 5 lowest income classes, "Average annual
>expenditures" are much higher than "Income after taxes".
>
>Table 46. (Income before taxes: Shares of average annual expenditures and
>sources of income, Consumer Expenditure Survey, 1999)
>
>Income after taxes 1,234 7,576 12,163 16,927 23,487 32,458
>41,405 54,073 101,061
>Average annual expenditures $18,015 $14,926 $19,722 $24,366
>$28,963 $35,077 $40,868 $49,615 $76,812
>
>This might be due to the fact that: (i) Consumer units whose members
>experience a spell of unemployment may draw on their savings to maintain
>their expenditures, (ii) Self-employed consumers may experience business
>losses that result in low or even negative incomes but they are able to
>maintain their expenditures by borrowing or relying on savings, (iii)
>Students may get by on loans while they are in school, and retirees may rely
>on savings and investments.
>
>This, I think, seriously impairs the conclusions that can be drawn from the
>BLS data.
>
>In many countries, households are not ranked by income but by total income
>per unit of consumption. These "units of consumption" are calculated by a
>formula (A+bC)^d, where A is the number of adults in the household, C is the
>number of children in the household, b is a coefficient smaller than one
>(generally 0.5 or 0.7) to take into account the fact that children consume
>less, and d is a coefficient reflecting the economy of scale that results
>from household size.
>
>Are similar calculations used by any other institution producing data on
>household expenditure on transport?
>
>Than you very much for any help, and appologies for my approximate English.
>
>Richard Darbera
>Professor
>Ecole Nationale des Ponts & Chaussees
>6-8 Avenue Blaise Pascal
>Cite Descartes
>F77455 Marne la Vallee Cedex 2
>FRANCE
>Tel: 33 1 64 15 38 34
>Fax: 33 1 64 15 36 00
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.vtpi.org
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