This study examines how the distribution of income across persons, regions, countries and larger geographical areas in the EU has changed in the dawn of the enlargement of the EU. It focuses especially on the effects of trade liberalization, the welfare states and the regional cohesion policy...

With a view to better assessment of the roles played by social security and social policy in determining well-being, this presentation introduces the 'decommodified security ratio' (DSR), an instrument for evaluating an important duty of the social State, namely to maintain and improve people's...

Since 2001, an increasing income inequality can be observed in most EU Member States. On aggregate level, this development is not reflected by statistics. They indicate growing average wages in real terms. Detailed statistics on average wages of different income classes reveal a tendency of...

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...

In this paper, the relationship between the degree of centralisation and the distributive outcomes in European schemes of social assistance is investigated. For this purpose, a scheme of classification suitable for grouping the EU15 schemes according to features related to centralisation is...

In the 2X2X2 Heckscher-Ohlin model there exists a one to one relation between relative good prices and relative factor prices. A change in the relative price of one good changes the relative price of the factor used intensively in the production of the good in the same direction. We review this...

Pension systems differ across European countries according to various characteristics. But every one operates some redistribution within cohort. This paper analyses the comparative intragenerational redistributive performances of public pension transfers using data from the Luxembourg Income...

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...

The recent successes of Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front, Jörg Haider's Freedom Party and Pim Fortuyn's 'List' Party, to name just a few, have generated a great deal of anxiety among those concerned about the maintenance of liberal values in European societies. In particular, many...