Since 1789, mass education has been a key factor in development, enablinglarge numbers of people to escape at least the worst effects of poverty. This paper explores an ancient harbinger of mass education, among Jews in the Roman empire, the basis of Jewish religious education to modern times....

To assess the impact of tax-benefit policy changes on income distribution over time, we suggest a methodology based on counterfactual simulations. We start by decomposing changes in inequality/poverty indices into three contributions: reforms of the tax-benefit structure (rules, rates, etc.),...

This paper reviews developments in income and health poverty in Ireland over the 2003-2011 period using data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC). It also examines developments in the correlation between the two. Income poverty fell up to and including 2009, after which this...

Existing studies find little connection between living standards and mortality in England, but go back only to the sixteenth century. Using new data on inheritances, we extend estimates of mortality back to the mid-thirteenth century and find, by contrast, that deaths from unfree tenants to the...

To combat growing levels of obesity, health related taxes have been suggested with taxes on foods high in fat or sugar. Such taxes have been criticised on the basis of their regressivity and potentially adverse impact upon poverty. This paper analyses the effect of such taxes on a range of...

This study analysed the contribution of economic growth and redistribution components to aggregate poverty changes in Ireland from 1987-2005, using the Shapley value decomposition approach. The analysis used the household disposable income data from the Household Budget Survey to calculate...