Politique d'austérité et récession économique. Incidence sur la distribution du revenu des Belges de 1980 à 1984.

Throughout the last decade, Belgian income distribution has been crucially affected by two factors: the overall economic situation and changes in fiscal programs. The purpose of our paper is to study the redistributive incidence of these factors and to dissociate their relative contribution to the evolution of inequality over the period 1980-1984. As a limited amount of data was available, we were forced to use an indirect method based on extrapolation. In a first step, a numerical model representing the income and activity structure of households in 1980 is set up. Year by year the observed variations in fiscal programs and in the overall economic situation are then introduced.This makes possible to distinguish and to measure incidence of macroeconomic evolution and fiscal programs over that period.