This paper examines income inequality over stages of the later-life course (age 45 and older) and systems that can be used to mitigate this inequality. Two hypotheses are tested: Levels of income inequality decline during old age because public benefits are more equally distributed than work...

According to the 'median-voter' hypothesis, greater inequality in the market distribution of earnings or income tends to produce greater generosity in redistributive policy. We outline the steps in the causal chain specified by the hypothesis and attempt to assess these steps empirically. Prior...

The recent EU expansion raised fears of potential migration motivated by welfare receipt. In this paper we use comparable data from five countries - Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Norway and the U.S. - to ask whether immigrants benefit more from social support than natives. Looking at the European...

Most cross-country comparisons of living standards focus on real Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person. These measures provide no variance in living standards within the nation, nor do they account for the amount of real incomes that families actually...

This paper examines variation in old-age income inequality between industrialized nations with modern welfare systems. The analysis of income inequality across countries with different retirement income systems provides a perspective on public pension policy choices and designs and their...

This report gives the results derived from a cross-sectional analysis of the distributional effects of noncash benefits in four countries. The results of the Norwegian data suggest that the distribution of benefits influences the relative income position of household groups. The main...

The goal of this paper is to compare the well-being of young children in Canada, Norway and the United States. Many economic models focus on children's eventual well-being by adopting an investment perspective. While this is important, children's well-being today should also count when we assess...

The goal of this project is to explore possible linkages between social policy mix and outcomes for young children (i.e., aged 0 to 11 years) in Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the US. Of course, social policy is obviously not the only potential determinant of children's well-being....

In an age when there is considerable focus on the needs and rights of children, it is perhaps a little surprising that parental income still mostly determines the standard of living that children enjoy. This has important implications, not just in terms of overall levels of welfare for children,...

A number of distributions have been used to describe income distribution. This paper estimates eleven distributions (GB, GB1, GB2, B, B1, B2, GG, BR3, BR12, GA, and LN) using data from eight countries (Australia, Canada, Israel, Norway, Russia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States) for...