Income-expenditure surveys typically provide incomes on the household level. As households can differ in size and needs, a reliable assessment of inequality in living standards, therefore, necessitates the conversion of the original heterogeneous into an artificial quasi-homogeneous population....

In view of rising wage and income inequality, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of a nationwide legal minimum wage of 7.50 € per hour on the basis of a microsimulation model which accounts...

The decline of the middle class has been investigated as a principal aspect of social polarization (Wolfson 1994, 1997). Wang and Tsui 2000 have characterized a class of polarization measures by postulates on normalization, increasing spread and increasing bipolarity. The present paper...

The relationship between income inequality and polarization is an empirical fact: a change in equality might occur together with a change in polarization. At the same time, polarization might emerge while inequality remains constant. The outcome of this process entails relevant information about...

This chapter describes the UK income distribution and how it has evolved over the last 50 years. It also includes some comparisons with the income distributions of other rich countries. Multiple perspectives on the distribution are provided: there is evidence about real income levels and...

Income-expenditure surveys typically provide incomes on the household level. As households can differ in size and needs, a reliable assessment of inequality in living standards, therefore, necessitates the conversion of the original heterogeneous into an artificial quasi-homogeneous population....

A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation...

This paper documents and tries to explain the discrepancies between the income distributions reported by the three major household surveys in Brazil: the Census, the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) and the Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares (POF). The main hypothesis is that...

This paper uses the tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD to assess how three types of tax reform would affect the state budget and the income distribution in the Netherlands. After briefly introducing the Dutch tax system and the case for and against these reforms, we investigate the...

A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation...