Means-tested social assistance programs have acquired, in the last two decades, an increasing role in the majority of industrialised countries. Although the issue of whether social assistance should be targeted or universally granted remains a main subject of dispute (Harding et al. 1994; Mitchell 1995;...

This paper has two principal objectives. Using a tax-benefit microsimulation model and the 1998 micro data of the Bank of Italy survey of household income and wealth, we first study the distributional effects of the current Italian income maintenance system and highlight its main defects and...

This paper aims to analyse the social assistance systems in five South European countries: France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. After reviewing the existing system of social assistance in each country, we apply a consistent methodology in order to estimate its impact on income...

This paper reviews the impact on the distribution of households’ living standards (in terms of occupation, inequality and poverty) of the great recession in Italy, the evolution of labour market policies and social assistance over the last year and their effectiveness in facing the social...