In this paper we propose an aggregate measure of income inequality for all founding countries of the European monetary union. Applying the methodology of the Theil index we are able to derive a measure for Euroland as a whole by exploiting information of two data sets, the European Community...

The starting point in the paper is the relative concept of poverty. We will study how our picture of poverty will change if we accept a very relative concept of poverty. The first problem we encountered was the selection of the benchmark. A couple of alternative ways to conduct relativizations...

Working-age Americans work longer hours than adults in other industrialized countries. At the same time, the United States. has one of the least equal income distributions of any rich country. This paper provides a cross-national analysis of the impact of the exceptional U.S. income distribution...

In the social policy debate, fundamentally different ideas prevail about the interlinkages between such key variables as employment, low pay, social transfers and poverty. This paper presents basic empirical evidence on the validity of these ideas and the policy prescriptions that follow from...

Greater social cohesion is an explicit goal of the European Union. Progress is monitored considering the performance in each member country on the basis of national indicators; EU-wide estimates of inequality and poverty play no role. Yet this is a basic information to evaluate the progress of...

This study examines how the distribution of income across persons, regions, countries and larger geographical areas in the EU has changed in the dawn of the enlargement of the EU. It focuses especially on the effects of trade liberalization, the welfare states and the regional cohesion policy...

Since 2001, an increasing income inequality can be observed in most EU Member States. On aggregate level, this development is not reflected by statistics. They indicate growing average wages in real terms. Detailed statistics on average wages of different income classes reveal a tendency of...

The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the many opportunities the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data set provides to measure the distributive effect of taxes and transfers in the developed countries. Two specific tasks are undertaken. First, and most important, the paper offers a...

In this paper, the relationship between the degree of centralisation and the distributive outcomes in European schemes of social assistance is investigated. For this purpose, a scheme of classification suitable for grouping the EU15 schemes according to features related to centralisation is...