The European Union coordinates and encourages Member State actions to combat poverty, and to reform their social protection systems on the basis of policy exchanges and mutual learning (‘best practices’). Some EU countries are more effective in poverty reduction than others. What can explain...

<p>The European Union coordinates and encourages Member State actions to combat poverty, and to reform their social protection systems on the basis of policy exchanges and mutual learning (‘best practices’). This paper analyses the effectiveness of welfare state policies and especially...</p>

Poverty alleviation is an important policy objective in developed welfare states. This paper analyzes the effect of social transfer policies on poverty. A vast literature claims that high social effort goes along with low poverty levels across countries. This paper systematically analyzes this...

In most OECD countries the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past decades. This paper analyzes whether and to what extent taxes and social transfers have contributed to this trend. Has the redistributive power of different social programs changed over time? The paper contributes to...

Poverty alleviation is an important policy objective in developed welfare states. This paper analyzes the effect of social transfer policies on poverty. A vast literature claims that high social effort goes along with low poverty levels across countries. This paper systematically analyzes this...

A wide variety of tax regimes for (occupational) private pension saving are in place around the world. Generally, pension saving is taxed at a relatively low rate, although the revenue loss due to tax facilities for pension savings and/or pension tax expenditures may differ across countries. A...

Convergence of social protection objectives and policies in Member States is an explicit objective of the EU. Earlier research has shown that there has indeed been a tendency of convergence of social protection levels over the last decades. However, comparative studies frequently use indicators...