This paper aims to assess tax policy reforms that can sustain universal basic income programs and foster long-term growth and welfare in a currency union that faces fiscal rule constraints and inequality. To address this ongoing government and economics' debate, we developed a Dynamic Stochastic...

Little is known about the effectiveness of means-tested benefits in Bulgaria. Using individual and household level data, I analyse the performance of two social assistance and two means- tested child benefits. I find that the programmes reach a very small proportion of the households with...

Little is known about the effectiveness of means-tested benefits in Bulgaria. Using individual and household level data, I analyse the performance of two social assistance and two means-tested child benefits. I find that the programmes reach a very small proportion of the households with incomes...

This paper addresses the often neglected question of how macroeconomic risk is shared across and within economies, and identifies reforms that could contribute towards achieving more desirable risksharing outcomes. For risk-sharing across countries, the paper discusses possibilities for...

Based on a narrative dataset constructed by David and Leigh (2018) that covers nine South American economies in the period 1982-2017, this paper estimates dynamic effects of fiscal consolidations on income inequality from Jordá (2005)'s local projections method. Results suggest that fiscal...

Cash transfers and index insurance have become popular interventions by development agencies worldwide, yet surprisingly little is known about these programs' comparative impacts on participant behavior or well-being. This paper exploits exogenous variation in program participation and panel...

Using a difference-in-differences model on full population data, we estimate the causal effects of a terrorist attack on labor market and social insurance outcomes of bereaved parents. Compared with non-bereaved parents, we find substantial negative effects. One mechanism through which these...

This paper explores if 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 GMM...

Due to behavioral effects triggered by redistributional interventions, it is still an open question whether government policies are able to effectively reduce income inequality. We contribute to this research question by using different country-level data sources to study inequality trends in...