The rise of populist radical right parties represents one of the most dramatic shifts in European party systems of the past decades. Although it has been established that the populist radical right's core appeal centers around issues of immigration and multiculturalism rather than economic...

The aim of this study is to analyze redistribution within the Austrian tax-benefit system. In this work we take a comprehensive view and include not only direct taxation and cash benefits, but also indirect taxes and in-kind transfers. We look at two kinds of redistribution: between the...

This paper is prepared as a chapter for the Handbook of Income Distribution, Volume 2 (edited by A. B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Elsevier-North Holland, forthcoming). Like the other chapters in the volume (and its predecessor), the aim is to provide a comprehensive review of a particular area...

The turn of the century brought encouragement and hope for many emerging economies undergoing a new phase of growth, with falling inequality and a promising push towards greater social inclusion. Within this trend of economic recovery and increased equity, Latin America would stand out, with...

Given the prevalence of informal labor, most countries have combined contributory social insurance programs (pensions, unemployment benefits, and health insurance), with non-contributory insurance programs and several types of "safety nets." All of these programs involve different types of...

We assess the non-contributory cash transfer systems in 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries to identify factors that keep them from reducing poverty and inequality. To perform this assessment, we analyze three dimensions of size (number of beneficiaries, size of transfer per beneficiary,...

A key challenge for policymakers is how to design methods to select beneficiaries of social programs when income is volatile and the target population is dynamic. We evaluate a traditional static proxy-means test (PMT) and three policy-relevant alternatives. We use a unique panel dataset of a...