This paper presents findings on the changing effectiveness of cash transfers and income taxes on inequality and poverty … reduction in four EU countries - the UK, Italy, Sweden and France. We use long time series (spanning four decades) to examine … relationship between the concentration of cash transfers net of direct taxes and their effectiveness in terms of reducing poverty …

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 decreasing public support for such spending. However, empirical support …