This paper documents the variation in living standards of the poorest fifth of children in rich (and some middle-income) nations, with a focus on the relative importance and interaction of social transfers (net of taxes) and labour market incomes. Overall, the cross-national variation in the...

Previous research has identified a distinctive East Asian model of income protection for disadvantaged children. In the wealthier East Asian societies, relative poverty rates are similar or lower than those in many Western European societies, but income transfers are low and market incomes...

Does the within-household distribution of income influence household consumption patterns? In one attempt to answer this question, Lundberg, Pollak and Wales (1997) exploited the ‘natural experiment’ of a change in family benefits in the UK. They found that the within-household income...