Public social expenditure accounts for 25 per cent of GDP, or even more in some countries. That expenditure on this scale has some effect on growth seems very likely, but the direction of the effect is disputed by different schools of thought. Using new data sources and panel data econometric...

This article uses internationally-comparable data on the distribution of income across households to identify some well-founded facts to replace the conjecture and supposition which too often dominate discussions on inequality and poverty. There has been a general trend in nearly all OECD...