Trade unions have been successful in compressing the wage distributionbut not in influencing the share of national income going to labour. This paperclaims that a compressed wage distribution provides insurance in the same way thatthe tax and benefit system does and thus may be...

There is clear evidence that fairness plays a role in redistribution. Individuals want tocompensate others for their misfortune, while they allow them to enjoy the fruits of their effort.Such fairness considerations have been introduced in political economy and optimal incometax models with a...

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

The Polish tax and benefit system is presented in the context of a recently developedmicrosimulation model, SIMPL. The model allows simulating direct taxes, social contributionsand public benefits in Poland for the years 2003 and 2005...>br>