This chapter provides a thorough survey of what recent international (i.e., cross-country) studies can tell us about the multiple causes of income inequality in the OECD area with regard to both levels and trends. The survey covers economics literature in particular but also relevant evidence...

Proponents of a basic income (BI) claim that it could bring significant reductions in financial poverty, on top of many other benefits, including greatly reduced administrative complexity and cost. Using microsimulation analysis in a comparative two-country setting, we show that the potential...

We apply the Kakwani approach to decomposing redistributive effect into average rate, progressivity, and reranking components using yearly UK data covering 1977–2018. We examine cash and in-kind benefits, and direct and indirect taxes. In addition, we highlight an empirical implementation...

Proponents of a basic income (BI) claim that it could bring significant reductions in financial poverty, on top of many other benefits, including greatly reduced administrative complexity and cost. Using microsimulation analysis in a comparative two-country setting, we show that the potential...

The last decade has seen a sharp increase in interest in the possible existence of a Paradox of Redistribution (PoR) whereby narrow targeting of social transfers aimed at increasing their redistributive (poverty) impact has the perverse effect of increasing poverty over the medium term due to...

Basic income advocates see a universal income grant, no questions asked, as bringing many potential benefits, not in the least as an ironclad protection against poverty, if set high enough. It is hard to know with any certainty what a world with a sizeable basic income would look like but we can...

We decompose the redistributive effect of direct taxes into vertical, horizontal, and reranking components applying the methods of Urban and Lambert (Public Finance Review, 2008). In the first such application to the UK, and using yearly data covering 1977-2020, we find that redistributive...

The paper simulates the redistributive impact of three possible scenarios for the introduction of a basic income (BI, also sometimes called "citizens' income") in Quebec. The simulations are revenue neutral at the joint provincial-federal government level. The first scenario assumes that a set...

Economic inequalities have been increasing in many countries since the 1980s provoking calls for more income redistribution. One argument against increased redistribution is that it could hamper innovation and technological progress. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that...

The contribution of government transfer programs to inequality is often assessed by analyzing to what extent the benefits paid go to lower income families. Several analysts have found that some key government transfers actually go mostly to middle and high income families and thus contribute to...