摘要：This paper is concerned with the effect of the welfare state in redistributing income away from or towards different types of household. As is well-known, OECD countries differ greatly in how much income is redistributed through the welfare state and in priorities for government spending. This paper investigates whether there is a systematic relationship between the amount of government expenditure on the welfare state and the distributional implications of the welfare state for OECD countries. (A longer and more detailed version of this paper is available from the author on request). Most previous analysis has been concerned with the effect of the welfare state in redistributing income from high income households to low income households. By contrast, the investigation in this paper examines the effect of the welfare state in redistributing incomes between households at particular stages of life. The interest is not with how the welfare state affects households with unusually high or low incomes but with how it affects families with children or the retired in general
