We study differences in contributory and non-contributory welfare benefit receipt between immigrants and natives for 16 EU countries. In contrast to previous studies we analyse differences in benefit levels allowing for potentially different takeup rates between immigrants and natives and use...

Das Europa der 27 ist ein Wirtschaftsraum mit extremen und stark unterschätzten Einkommensunterschieden. Wie lässt sich die Einkommensverteilung innerhalb der Europäischen Union messen? Welche Folgen hat die ungleiche Einkommensstruktur für den Arbeitsmarkt in der EU? Wie kann der soziale...

Dieser Beitrag vergleicht die automatischen Stabilisierungswirkungen der Steuer- und Transfersysteme in der Europäischen Union und in den USA in der aktuellen Wirtschaftskrise. Dazu werden zwei Szenarien simuliert: erstens ein proportionaler Einkommensschock, in dem alle Bruttoeinkommen um 5...

This paper investigates the relationship between the magnitude of automatic stabilizers in the tax and transfer systems of 19 EU countries and the US, and discretionary fiscal stimulus packages passed by these countries during the recent economic crisis. In particular, we ask whether countries...

In this paper social assistance developments are analyzed in a large number of EU member states, including European transition countries and the new democracies of southern Europe. The empirical analysis is based on the unique and recently established SaMip Dataset, which provides social...

The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the many opportunities the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data set provides to measure the distributive effect of taxes and transfers in the developed countries. Two specific tasks are undertaken. First, and most important, the paper offers a...

The recent EU expansion raised fears of potential migration motivated by welfare receipt. In this paper we use comparable data from five countries - Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Norway and the U.S. - to ask whether immigrants benefit more from social support than natives. Looking at the European...

This paper explores whether more generous social spending polices in fact lead to less income inequality, or if redistributive outcomes are offset by behavioral disincentive effects. To account for the inherent endogeneity of social policies with regard to inequality levels, I apply the System...

Using the notion of the poverty regime as a heuristic device, this paper examines the safety nets of several members of the European Union and three candidate countries: Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic,...

This paper analyses the distributive impacts of various regulatory and institutional settings of European schemes of social assistance. For this purpose, two sets of classifications of European schemes of social assistance are introduced that classify the systems according to regulatory...