Redistribution is one of the principal mechanisms through which countries secure low income inequality. Maintaining moderately high wage levels at the low end of the distribution may be increasingly difficult and perhaps even counterproductive from an egalitarian perspective. If so,...

There is confusion in the literature concerning the relationship between income inequality and redistribution in a cross-country perspective. The reason for this is that different contributions in the literature are not referring to the same characteristic. This is shown by addressing...

We use a range of data sources to assess if, and to what extent, government redistribution policies have slowed or accelerated the trend towards greater income disparities in the past 20-25 years. In most countries, inequality among 'non-elderly' households has widened during most phases of the...

The link between income inequality and governmental redistribution is still subject to intense research and debate. Starting with the median-voter-hypothesis, a plethora of theoretical models have been developed during the last three decades to identify and explain possible causal relationships....

What are the principal sources of posttax-posttransfer inequality in affluent countries? To what extent do inequality of individual earnings, inequality of market household incomes, redistribution, and other factors influence the posttaxposttransfer income distribution? And what do the answers...

The term 'family gap' refers to differences in income between households with children and households without children. Previous work has used the welfare state typology proposed by Esping-Andersen to explain differences in family gaps among western nations. This paper contributes to family gap...

Class differences in attitudes towards redistribution are compared across European countries. Two main competing hypotheses are tested, using scatterplots and multi-level modelling. The first is that class differences in attitudes are affected mainly by real class stratification, so that class...

This paper surveys the rise of income inequality in affluent nations. Social programs are critical to keeping inequality in check, but their sustainability is increasingly threatened. A possible solution is high levels of employment.

Why, contrary to Meltzer and Richard's prediction (1981), do nations with low levels of wage inequality have large welfare states? Why in turn, consistently with MR (1981), do many of these same nations have large levels of market income inequality? This paper points to the role of second order...

Despite the considerable influence of Esping-Andersen's categorization of three 'worlds' of welfare capitalism, researchers have largely neglected investigation of his dimensions of welfare state policy and politics. Building on and extending the foundations provided by Esping-Andersen, we...