In this paper, I first summarize how the US Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) operates and describe the characteristics of recipients. I then discuss empirical work on the effects of the EITC on poverty and income distribution, and its effects on labor supply. Next, I discuss a few policy concerns...

This paper analyzes the evolution of tax progressivity in Sweden from both annual and lifetime perspectives. Using a rich micro panel with administrative records of incomes, taxes and benefits over the period 1968 - 2009, we calculate tax rates across the income distribution accounting for...

This paper studies income poverty among the 50+ population in 10 EU countries using newly collected data from the SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) project. A measure of the household's disposable annual income is used. Relative income poverty range from 10 percent (in...

This paper reviews evidence on social mobility in Latin America. Several studies have used data sets that collect intergenerational socio economic information. The data, though limited, suggest that social mobility is low in the region, even when compared with low social mobility developed...

This paper explores the capability of the state to affect the individual's decision to work for free. For this purpose we combine individual-level data from the European and World Values Survey with macroeconomic and political variables for OECD member countries. Empirically we identify three...

This study uses Swedish data to analyze why the SES-health gradient increases with ageing. Since different measures of SES and health capture different aspects, we use this information to explore the age increase in health inequality and to discriminate between three types of explanations,...

This study uses the Swedish register of prescribed drugs, merged with the Survey of Living Conditions (the ULF), to analyze the socioeconomic gradient in drug utilization. It finds a significant education gradient (but no income gradient) in individual drug utilization. Whereas the education...

Does the supply of a welfare state create its own demand? Many economic scholars studying welfare arrangements refer to Say's law and insinuate a self-destructive welfare state. However, little is known about the empirical validity of these assumptions and hypotheses. We study the dynamic effect...

Welfare persistence is estimated and compared between Swedish-born and foreign-born households during the 1990s. This is done within the framework of a dynamic discrete choice model controlling for the initial condition and permanent unobserved heterogeneity. We control for three types of...

Although the economic integration of immigrants has been the subject of a large number of studies, the research on the effect of intermarriage on immigrants' economic integration/assimilation is scarce and has no equivalence in the literature on the receipt of social assistance. This study fills...