Tax expenditures are preferential tax treatments granted to specific individuals or categories of households which aim at achieving social and economic goals. They are widely used by EU Member States. However, their fiscal and equity impacts are not always clear and their effectiveness and...

Policy discussions on pension systems generally focus on their sustainability and design, including retirement age, income reference and contributory period, with relatively little attention devoted to the tax treatment of pension contributions and pension benefits. However, tax expenditures -...

We analyse the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on EU households' income and assess the cushioning effect of discretionary policy measures taken by the EU Member States. Our assessment is based on the European Commission Spring 2020 forecasts and counterfactual scenarios under a no policy change...

Much of the literature on flat tax reforms has highlighted the benefits of introducing flat personal income tax systems in transition economies. The advocated benefits of flat tax systems range from their simplicity, higher compliance and lower distortionary effects on growth and employment....

The present study provides estimates of the Effective Marginal Tax Rates (EMTRs) for a sample of 17 OECD countries and 11 manufacturing sectors in a single framework encompassing capital, labour and energy taxes. Our cross-country/cross-sector approach allows us comparing the incentives provided...

Much of the literature on flat tax reforms has highlighted the benefits of introducing flat personal income tax systems in transition economies. The advocated benefits of flat tax systems range from their simplicity, higher compliance and lower distortionary effects on growth and employment....

This paper describes how household wealth is distributed in 28 OECD countries, based on evidence from the second wave of the OECD Wealth Distribution Database. A number of general patterns emerge from these data. First, wealth concentration is twice the level of income inequality: across the 28...

The paper describes inequality trends in selected emerging economies (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa) in a range of monetary (i.e. income) and non-monetary dimensions of people’s life (i.e. education, health status, employment and subjective well-being)....

Policy discussions on pension systems generally focus on their sustainability and design, including retirement age, income reference and contributory period while relative little attention is devoted to the tax treatment of pension contributions and pension benefits. However, tax expenditures -...

In this paper, we present the first dynamic scoring exercise linking a multi‐country microsimulation and DSGE models for all countries of the European Union. We illustrate our novel methodology analysing a hypothetical tax reform for Belgium. We then evaluate real tax reforms in Italy and...