Given the increased availability of survey income data, in this paper we analyse the pros and cons of alternative data sets for static tax-benefit microsimulation in Italy. We focus on all possible alternatives, namely using (a) SHIW or (b) IT-SILC data using a consistent net-to-gross...

This papers quantifies the redistributive effects on progressivity, poverty and welfare, that would occur if the monetary benefits currently in place in the Spanish system were to be replaced by a neutral alternative in terms of spending, granting a universal basic income (UBI) to everyone. We...

This paper provides a short country-by-country harmonised analysis - using EUROMOD - of the distributional effects on household disposable income of direct tax and cash benefit policy changes between 2018 and 2019. It is the latest in this series of reports, available as EUROMOD working papers,...

Gender based taxation (GBT) has been recently proposed as a promising policy in order to improve women's status in the labour market and within the family. We use a microeconometric model of household labour supply in order to evaluate, with Italian data, the behavioural and welfare effects of...

Over the last two decades a growing interest in understanding what determines the redistributive role of tax-benefit systems has emerged worldwide. In the case of Italy, previous analyses were mainly focused on quantifying the contribution of marginal tax rates, deductions and tax credits to the...

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...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

In this paper, we present the first dynamic scoring exercise linking a multi-country microsimulation and DSGE models for all countries of the European Union. We illustrate our novel methodology analysing a hypothetical tax reform for Belgium. We then evaluate real tax reforms in Italy and...

In empirical analysis, the Kakwani index is the most frequently used indicator for comparing progressivity across countries and over time. The Kakwani is often assumed to measure to what extent a policy design is targeted to the poor. It has, however, a major drawback: it is not defined for net...

Contrary to frequent recommendations of the public finance literature and international institutions, a persistently high tax wedge on labor is observed in Europe. Simultaneously, the scope for shifting taxes to more growth-friendly revenue sources appears underused. This motivates our...