This paper offers a new way of assessing government cash transfers using a social welfare function framework. It demonstrates how one can use social welfare functions to measure the efficiency of such program s without requir ing the specif ication of a poverty line or particular poverty...

This paper assesses Italy’s 2019 tax and benefit reforms, analyses hypothetical reforms and proposes a reform package that balances goals of reducing poverty, encouraging employment and fiscal sustainability. Using the OECD’s Tax-Benefit and the EUROMOD microsimulation models, it shows that...

This paper presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration, which has interlinked with, and partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological transitions and rapid urbanization and economic...

This paper aims to propose a social protection system that "decommodifies" labour and fulfills the properties of a Social Protection Floor satisfying revenue-neutrality. To this end, firstly, a Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme is explored. Secondly, the UBI is transformed into a Negative...

Amidst the bleak picture of increasing joblessness and indebtedness presented by the National Sample Survey's employment surveys and debt surveys, a minimum standard of living for the nation's poor seems to be under threat. In response to this, recent schemes inspired by the Universal Basic...

We assess the non-contributory cash transfer systems in 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries to identify factors that keep them from reducing poverty and inequality. To perform this assessment, we analyze three dimensions of size (number of beneficiaries, size of transfer per beneficiary,...