This text describes in detail how to simulate the poverty impacts of changes in the entitlement rules and benefit values of the Bolsa Família Program. This simulation is especially challenging due to: i) the absence of a specific question on Bolsa Família income in the PNAD household survey...

Arguments against means-tested cash transfers for the poor based upon labor supply appear both in the specialized literature and in the media. It is possible to make a microeconomic argument pointing to a reduction in labor supply on the part of beneficiaries of a targeted cash transfer. This...

This text attempts to estimate the impacts of Bolsa Família upon grade repetition using matched data from the Single Registry, the Attendance Project and the annual school censuses. Three approaches are used: i) comparison of results for poor children in the Single Registry with and without the...

Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin”...

Hungarian family policy focuses on providing generous options to take time off work to look after children. This system not only contributes to Hungary’s low employment rate but encourages long separation from the labour market, has largely failed to significantly influence fertility rates and...

The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test for the vulnerability of social institutions. This paper assesses the vulnerability of social institutions in light of the current crisis, and surveys past episodes, when social institutions faced similar challenges. Public pay-as-you-go...

Ensuring tax and transfer systems bring sufficient revenue to reach macroeconomic fiscal targets, address societal goals in re-distribution and social welfare, recognise the influence taxation has on businesses’ competitiveness and adequately address environmental externalities is a tough...

Israeli house prices have risen by over 50% over the past three years. In part this reflects the fact that for several years housing construction had not kept pace with increases in the number of households. In response to these developments, hitherto sluggish planning-approval processes are...

Taxes and transfers reduce inequality in disposable income relative to market income. The effect varies, however, across OECD countries. The redistributive impact of taxes and transfers depends on the size, mix and the progressivity of each component. Some countries with a relatively small tax...

Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin”...