Statistical inference of progressivity dominance: an application to health care financing distributions

This paper employs a distribution-free statistical test suitable for comparisons based on dependent samples to analyse changes in health care financing distributions on Finnish data. In distinction to the more general summary index approach used in most studies of progressivity measurement, the difference between the Lorenz curve of income inequality and the concentration curves of various taxes and payments is used to evaluate progressivity dominance and changes in progressivity. Sample weights are applied to account for the effect of sampling design and non-response. The analysis demonstrates that the dominance approach can be successfully applied to various types of distributional problems besides comparisons concerning differences in income distributions. As an empirical application the paper presents estimation results for the progressivity of various health care financing sources using data from the 1987 and 1996 Finnish Health Care Surveys.