Social transfers vary enormously across the EU, as has been demonstrated in earlier research. This paper analyses the comparative effects of cash transfers on inequality and poverty, using consistent household data. The analysis shows that the distributional impact of these transfers is greater...

Proponents of a basic income (BI) claim that it could bring significant reductions in financial poverty, on top of many other benefits, including greatly reduced administrative complexity and cost. Using microsimulation analysis in a comparative two-country setting, we show that the potential...

Basic income advocates see a universal income grant, no questions asked, as bringing many potential benefits, not in the least as an ironclad protection against poverty, if set high enough. It is hard to know with any certainty what a world with a sizeable basic income would look like but we can...

Redistributive systems in Africa are still in their infancy but are constantly expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. This paper aims at characterizing the redistributive potential of six African countries: Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa. These...

This paper analyzes the effects of Denmark's Start Aid welfare reform that targets refugees. Implemented in 2002, it enables us to study not only the reform's immediate effects, but also its longerterm consequences, and its repeal a decade later. The reform-induced large transfer cuts led to an...

We study the effect of reducing welfare assistance on migrants' long-term integration in Australia. The policy postponed a migrant's eligibility for benefits during their first two years in the country. It mainly affected mothers and was announced after their arrival. Using a regression...

This paper analyzes differences in welfare utilization between immigrants and natives in Sweden using a large panel data set, LINDA, for the years 1990 to 1996. Both welfare expenditures and immigration increased in Sweden in the 1990's. We find that immigrants use welfare to a greater extent...

How do different components of the tax and transfer systems affect disposable income inequality? This paper explores the redistributive effects of different tax benefit instruments in the enlarged EU based on two approaches. Inequality analysis based on the standard approach suggests that...

This paper investigates the development of poverty in Sweden using micro data derived from tax files for the city of Göteborg for the years 1925, 1936, 1947, 1958 as well as more recent (1983, 1994 and 2003) information. We define poverty as living in a household with a disposable income lower...

The Polish tax and benefit system is presented in the context of a recently developed microsimulation model, SIMPL. The model allows simulating direct taxes, social contributions and public benefits in Poland for the years 2003 and 2005. It is based on the Household Budgets Survey data (Badania...