This paper addresses the question of the institutional flexibility of three major European welfare states. Using Data from the second and fifth wave of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we measure first how effectively the German, British and Italian welfare state have responded changes in...

For a growing number of children in families headed by single mothers and in those headed by two adults with limited job skills, economic security now depends on mothers' earnings. The role that income transfers plays in reducing child poverty is well understood. Much less investigated is the...

This paper presents findings on the changing effectiveness of cash transfers and income taxes on inequality and poverty reduction in four EU countries - the UK, Italy, Sweden and France. We use long time series (spanning four decades) to examine trends within countries over time and between...