The 2010 Economic Adjustment Programme initiated a period of strict international supervision with respect to tax policy in Greece. The country implemented a large-scale fiscal consolidation package, aiming to reduce its public deficit below 3% of GDP by 2016. Since the beginning of the crisis,...

This paper aims to explore how housing allowances and mortgage interest tax relief have evolved in recent years, against the background of falling disposable incomes and rising housing costs. The analysis focuses on seven EU countries (Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden and...

Based on simulated counterfactual analyses, this paper studies the long-term evolution of key policy outcomes associated with the Nordic model. The results show that Finland had the most redistributive policy changes in the studied time periods. The Danish flexicurity model involves high benefit...

Western countries' income tax systems exempt the return from investing in owner-occupied housing. Returns from other investments are instead taxed, thus distorting households’ portfolio choices, although it is argued that housing property taxation might act as a counterbalance. Based on data...

The distributional impact of policy changes is usually considered in terms of equivalised household income, assuming that each individual within the household is being affected in the same way, as a result of complete income pooling. The aim of this paper is to extend this approach by...

Policy makers are generally interested in both the anti-poverty impact and the efficiency of reforms. To connect these two dimensions, I measure the poverty gap change per unit of net revenue that tax-benefit reforms produce. To isolate the impact of reforms and account for labour supply...

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it provides a comprehensive assessment of the financial cost informal workers would incur if they entered formal employment in five Latin American countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Then, it analyzes the extent to which...

We assess how tax-benefit policy developments in 2001-2011 affected the household income distribution in seven EU countries. We use the standard microsimulation-based decomposition method, separating further the effect of structural policy changes and the uprating of monetary parameters, which...

This paper looks at the effects of tax-benefit systems and social stratification determinants on the probability of poverty among mothers after childbirth and divorce/separation. The analysis was carried out for twelve EU countries, which represent a variety of welfare regimes providing...

How can poverty reduction be improved and at what cost? Available evidence suggests that social investment strategies and employment policies are important but not sufficient. In order to reduce the number of people below the relative at-risk-of-poverty threshold of the EU, countries must...