European welfare states are under considerable stress. On the one hand, the recession has caused unemployment to rise and household incomes to fall, which both raise the demand for social protection. On the other hand, austerity policies and programme reforms affect the capacity of welfare...

As pointed out by the Expert Group on Household Income Statistics (Canberra Group, 2001), the way in which is dealt with the income value of home ownership is crucial for distribution analyses. Home-ownership can have a large impact on a household’s expenditure structure. Because of the large...

The poverty risk rate increased in Finland from 7 to 14 per cent between 1993 and 2010. We have estimated the counterfactual poverty rates for the year 2010 in order to evaluate the impact of changes in tax and benefit systems on the increase of the poverty risk rate. Household disposable...