‘Do I get my money back?’: A Broader Approach to Inequality and Redistribution in France With a Monetary Valuation of Public Services

Who benefits from public transfers after paying taxes? This paper develops an extended approach of redistribution, allocating 100% of national income and transfers between various categories of households. We complete Piketty, Saez, Zucman (2018) with a new micro-founded methods to monetize and allocate in-kind transfers and collective public services in France. We find that 60% of households are net beneficiaries of extended redistribution. The impact of redistribution on attenuation of inequalities is two times larger than with the usual monetary approach, with a major role for health and education. An analysis over age groups highlights a “tragedy of horizons”: 90% of individuals over the age of 60 receive more than they pay, mainly via retirement pensions and health, versus less than 50% for those under the age of 60. Other types of analysis, such as family, gender, geographic area or social class, confirm the importance of the extended approach to properly assessing redistribution.