Addressing Inequality in Budgeting
Lessons from Recent Country Experience
In many countries, public expenditure, including transfers, plays a major role in
reducing income inequality. The report reviews the various ways that budgeting can
be used to this end. A first includes taking a broad approach to results-based budgeting,
taking social and distributional goals into consideration. A second relies on integrating
distributional impact analysis directly into the budget process. The report discusses
the concrete experience of eight OECD countries in this area, analysing how they are
integrating distributional impact assessment in spending and budgeting decisions.
Finally, it discusses the tools, frameworks and data that are needed to take distributional
considerations into account as part of evidence-informed policy making.
Published on February 19, 2024