We assess the impact of a new policy action in the form of cash child benefit introduced in Poland in 2016 (the program Family 500 +) on inequality and poverty. The analysis is based on micro-level household data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and Statistics Poland. We examine the...

The literature on tax systems generally considers each type of tax in a self-contained way, with its own distributive characteristics. While the income tax is considered as a progressive tax, social insurance contributions are seen as being regressive, namely because of ceilings. Using a...

How adequately did governments protect their citizens over the Great Recession? The recent recession, the worst since the Great Depression, provides an opportune moment to investigate the adequacy and fairness of countries' responses to an economic crisis. Using household-level LIS data from...

Korpi and Palme's (1998) classic "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality" claims that universal social policy better reduces poverty than social policies targeted at the poor. This article revisits Korpi and Palme's classic, and in the process, explores and informs a set of...

Korpi and Palme (1998) famously suggested the existence of a Paradox of Redistribution:although programs targeted to the poor may be more redistributive per unit of expendi-ture, universal programs reduce distributive conflicts, leading to bigger, more egalitarian wel-fare states. However,...

Using observational micro data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we assess the redistributive impact of tax and transfer configurations across 22 OECD countries for the period 1999-2013. After recovering new tax data (employer social contributions), we measure the reduction of income...

Most welfare states design their tax/benefit system to combat income poverty. Some countries are more effective in poverty alleviation than others. What can explain these variations in outcomes and effectiveness? And has the redistributive power of different social programs changed over time and...