An important aspect of the impact of the economic crisis is how pay in the public sector responds – in the face not only of the evolution of pay in the private sector, but also extreme pressure on public spending (of which pay is a very large proportion) as fiscal deficits soar. What are the...

Ireland is one of the countries most severely affected by the Great Recession. National income fell by more than 10 per cent between 2007 and 2012, as a result of the bursting of a remarkable property bubble, an exceptionally severe banking crisis, and deep fiscal adjustment. This paper examines...

How great an effect does the structure of income taxes have on women’s labour market participation? This issue is investigated using a discrete choice static labour supply model for married couples in Ireland. The model incorporates fixed costs of working and simultaneously explains...

The Great Recession and the widespread adoption of fiscal austerity policies have heightened concern about inequality and how well tax-benefit systems redistribute. We examine how the distribution of income in the EU countries which were hardest hit during the recession evolved over this time....

Non-cash benefits can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. Standard approaches to the inclusion of non-cash benefits in broader measures of resources have failed to take adequate account of the pattern of needs associated with the greater use of health and education...

This paper examines the impact on inequality and poverty of the economic crisis in four European countries, namely France, Germany, the UK and Ireland, and the contribution of tax and benefit policy changes. The period examined, 2008 to 2010, was one of great economic turmoil, yet it is unclear...

To assess the impact of tax-benefit policy changes on income distribution over time, we suggest a methodology based on counterfactual simulations. We start by decomposing changes in inequality/poverty indices into three contributions: reforms of the tax-benefit structure (rules, rates, etc.),...

Direct provision of public services can alter the balance of resources across income groups. We focus on the issues arising when taking account of the impact of publicly provided education services across the income distribution. We combine OECD information on spending per student in particular...

There are two main sources of data on income distribution. Household based surveys report mainly on inequality in equivalised household level disposable income. Top income shares, on the other hand, focus on the tax unit as the unit of analysis, because administrative records are obtained from...

Comprehensive modelling of the impact of taxes and tax policy options requires data on the impact at micro-level of both direct and indirect taxes. There are, however, limits on the amount of data that can be gathered by any one survey. With some exceptions, most notably the Living Costs and...