Development of the social dimension of Europe was advanced by the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, and this paper considers the future direction of social policy. The first step towards a social agenda could take the form of benchmarking, based on national competencies in this field, with Member...

We compare the distributional effects of austerity measures that have been introduced in 6 EU countries in the period of large government budget deficits following the 2007-8 financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn. We explore the effects of policy changes presented as austerity...

As unemployment rises across the European Union (EU) it is important to understand the extent to which the incomes of the new unemployed are protected by tax-benefit systems and to assess the cost pressures on the social protection systems of this increase in unemployment. This paper uses the EU...

This paper analyses the extent to which tax-benefit systems provide an automatic stabilisation of income for those who became unemployed at the onset of the Great Recession. The focus of the analysis is on the compensation for earnings lost due to unemployment which is channelled through the...

Static microsimulation models are based on household micro-data and are designed to estimate the revenue cost and distributional and incentive effects of tax and benefit policy changes. They are invaluable for the design and evaluation of policy reforms. Static models allow us to hold constant...

Estimates of average per capita consumption and income from national accounts differ substantially from corresponding measures of consumption and income from household surveys. Using a new compilation of more than 2,000 household surveys matched to national accounts data, we find that the gaps...

Despite a rich literature studying the impact of inequality on policy outcomes, there has been limited effort to bring these insights into the debates about comparative support for government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We fill in this gap by analyzing rich survey data from six countries...

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havocs on economies around the world. Yet, much needs to be learnt on the distributional impacts of the pandemic. We contribute new theoretical and empirical evidence on the distributional impacts of the pandemic on different income groups in a multi-country...

Various challenges are thought to render female-headed households (FHHs) vulnerable to poverty in the Arab region. Yet, previous studies have mixed results and the absence of household panel survey data hinders analysis of poverty dynamics. We address these challenges by proposing a novel...

Citizen's Income - an unconditional and nonwithdrawable income for every individual - would offer many advantages, but transition from the UK's current largely means-tested benefits system to one based on a Citizen's Income might generate initial losses for some low-income households, and this...