A key aspect defining the contemporary income distribution is the (increasing) share the top holds compared to the rest. This paper shows that income concentration increases towards the very top of the distribution, while the shares the middle- and upper-middle-income groups hold remain stable...

In most OECD countries the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past decades. This paper analyzes whether and to what extent taxes and social transfers have contributed to this trend. Has the redistributive power of different social programs changed over time? The paper contributes to...

The paper investigates the relationship between capitalism systems and their levels of income and compositional inequality (how the composition of income between capital and labor varies along income distribution). Capitalism may be seen to range between Classical Capitalism, where the rich have...

This paper introduces in statistics the notion of the barycenter of the distribution of a non-negative random variable Y with a positive finite mean μY and the quantile function Q(x). The barycenter is denoted by μX and defined as the expected value of the random variable X having the...

Current studies addressing the rise in inequality confine themselves to country-level developments. This paper delineates trends in earnings inequality and employment at the sectoral level for eight LIS countries between 1985-2005. Earnings inequality mainly manifests itself within rather than...

In response to feminist critics, Esping-Andersen (1999) added family to the state-market nexus by examining the degree of familialism across regimes. In the absence of the state defamilializing care, however, it is difficult to predict work-family arrangements without reference to the overall...

Most welfare states design their tax/benefit system to combat income poverty. Some countries are more effective in poverty alleviation than others. What can explain these variations in outcomes and effectiveness? And has the redistributive power of different social programs changed over time and...

The last decades have witnessed an unprecedented increase in women's economic independence through higher educational attainment, labor force participation and an increase in the share of female-led households. However, up to date there is a gap in the literature concerning how this increase in...

Previous research has highlighted the disadvantaged position immigrants often face in the economy, particularly when it comes to labor market outcomes such as employment or earnings. Extending this literature, the present study evaluates the economic exclusion of immigrants, conceptualized not...