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...

In this text we address measurement, monitoring and cost issues relating to the eradication of extreme poverty in Brazil. We argue that, for the purpose of ending extreme poverty, income poverty is the relevant concept, and that an administrative extreme poverty line, decided upon politically,...

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...

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”...

Integrating information for the purpose of articulating social protection policies is hard work. It takes from political will, to capacity for institutional cooperation, to software development and direct communication channels with citizens. Because of that complexity, countries that pursue...

The goal of the study is to evaluate the targeting of the Bolsa Família Programme and its impacts on the reduction of poverty and inequality. To that end, we have used data from the 2001-2015 standard National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios - PNAD) and...

Social protection policy in Brazil is a historically built patchwork of programs that pay different values to people in the same situation, leaves many unprotected (in particular, 17 million children), is fraught with duplications and other inefficiencies. This note proposes an approach within...

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...

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...