"The paper provides an analysis of the level, the structure and the patterns of inter-temporal change in hourly earnings inequality in Europe. For the purposes of static inequality decomposition analysis, the data of the ECHP are employed. Considerable cross-country differences are observed...

The current debt crisis has given rise to a debate about deeper fiscal integration in Europe. The view is widespread that moving towards a 'fiscal union' would have a stabilising effect in the event of macroeconomic shocks. In this paper we study the economic effects of introducing two elements...

The paper examines the mobility into and out of poverty and identifies the determinants of poverty spell beginnings and endings in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The first part of the paper offers a snapshot of poverty mobility in...

The concept of equality of opportunity (EOp) goes back to Roemer (1993, 1998) who argues that a society shall guarantee its members equal access to advantage regardless of their circumstances, while holding them responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of...

This paper investigates whether joint economic and political integration leads to larger economic benefits than just economic integration. The identification strategy rests on the fact that Norway, at the time of the 1995 Enlargement of the European Union (EU), had successfully completed...

The current debt crisis has given rise to a debate about deeper fiscal integration in Europe. The view is widespread that moving towards a 'fiscal union' would have a stabilising effect in the event of macroeconomic shocks. In this paper we study the economic effects of introducing two elements...

We analyze to which extent social inequality aversion differs across nations when control- ling for actual country differences in labor supply responses. Towards this aim, we estimate labor supply elasticities at both extensive and intensive margins for 17 EU countries and the US. Using the same...

The paper analyzes the effects of individual and household characteristics on current poverty status, while controlling for initial conditions, past poverty status and unobserved heterogeneity in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The...

This paper presents new estimates of the economic benefits from economic and political integration. Using the synthetic counterfactuals method, we estimate how GDP per capita and labour productivity would have behaved for the countries that joined the European Union (EU) in the 1973, 1980s, 1995...

In a model in which agents differ in wages and preferences over labor time-consumption bundles, we study labor income tax schemes that alleviate poverty. To avoid conflict with individual well-being, we require redistribution to take place between agents on both sides of the poverty line...