Events

Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History: “Taxation and Redistribution in the Early Twentieth Century.”

05/05/2026 (Seminars)

Bank of Greece, DIESOI

The Historical Archives of the Bank of Greece, in the context of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History, jointly organised with the Athens University of Economics and Business and Panteion University, invite you to the lecture entitled:

“Taxation and Redistribution in the Early Twentieth Century”

Speaker: Oriol Sabate Domingo (University of Barcelona, Spain)

A few words on the topic:

The speaker will present the findings of a study conducted in collaboration with Sara Torregrosa-Hetland (Public University of Navarra). Their research provides estimates of the distributive effects of consumption taxes across five Western countries over the period 1910-1970 and seeks to contribute to the debate on the welfare state and regressive taxation by revisiting this formative historical period. The analysis contrasts patterns across five countries representing different welfare state models: “liberal” (United Kingdom, United States), “conservative” (France), “social democratic” (Sweden) and “southern” (Spain). Consistent series of different types of consumption taxes are constructed through the combination of various primary and secondary sources. These are subsequently imputed to synthetic income distribution microdata derived from personal income tax statistics. In order to link income with expenditure on different products, this relationship is estimated through linear regressions based on historical household budget surveys. The distributive effects of consumption taxes are then combined with those of personal income taxes, drawing on previous work. Preliminary results indicate that the negative redistribution associated with consumption taxes was both substantial and increasing throughout the period under examination. This reflected growth in both revenue and regressivity. The combined distributive effects of consumption and income taxes were positive in both “liberal” countries, with the effect being more pronounced in the United Kingdom.

The sessions are held between 17:00-19:00 at the Museum of the Bank of Greece, 3 Amerikis Street, Athens, and are open to the public, without requiring prior registration. The lecture will be delivered in English.

The complete programme of upcoming lectures is available on the website of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History.