Die Schicht der Bezieher mittlerer Einkommen ist in Deutschland in den vergangenen Jahren deutlich geschrumpft. Ihr Anteil an der gesamten Bevölkerung ging von 62 Prozent im Jahr 2000 auf 54 Prozent 2006 zurück. Entsprechend gestiegen ist der Bevölkerungsanteil an den Rändern der...

Die EU-Kommission hat 2010 zum Europäischen Jahr gegen Armut und soziale Ausgrenzung ausgerufen. Ein Ziel dieser Aktion ist es, das öffentliche Bewusstsein für die Risiken von Armut und sozialer Ausgrenzung zu stärken und deren Ursachen und Auswirkungen besser zu verstehen. Neue Analysen zur...

This paper evaluates income distributions in four European countries (Austria, Italy, Spain and Hungary) using two complementary approaches: a standard approach based on reported incomes in survey data, and a microsimulation approach, where taxes and benefits are simulated. Given that benefit...

This paper assesses the impact on household incomes of the COVID-19 pandemic and governments’ policy responses in April 2020 in four large and severely hit European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain and the UK. We provide comparative evidence on the level of relative and absolute welfare...

We assess how tax-benefit policy developments in 2001-2011 affected the household income distribution in seven EU countries. We use the standard microsimulation-based decomposition method, separating further the effect of structural policy changes and the uprating of monetary parameters, which...

Zuwanderer aus nichtwestlichen Ländern wohnen häufig unter sich. Diese "räumliche Segregation" ist aber nicht unbedingt ein Zeichen für mangelnden Integrationswillen. Sie scheint vielmehr zu einem großen Teil erklärbar durch soziale Unterschiede zwischen einheimischen Deutschen und den...

This paper measures the vulnerability of households in rural India, based upon the ICRISAT panel survey. We employ both ex ante and ex post measures of vulnerability. The latter are decomposed into aggregate and idiosyncratic risks and poverty components. Our decomposition shows that...

This paper describes changes over the past 15-20 years in non-income measures of wellbeing—education and health—in Africa. We expected to find, as we did in Latin America, that progress in the provision of public services and the focus of public spending in the social sector would contribute...

The literature on the economics of happiness in the developed economies finds discrepancies between reported measures of wellbeing and income measures. The ‘Easterlin paradox’, for example, shows that average happiness levels do not increase as countries grow wealthier. This article explores...

In a heterogeneous population which can be partitioned into well-defined subgroups, it is plausible that the extent of measured aggregate poverty should depend upon the distribution of poverty across the subgroups. A judgment in favour of an equal inter-group distribution of poverty could arise...