In terms of output decline and increase in unemployment, the economic recession in Latvia that started during the 2008-09 financial crisis was one of the most severe in the world. Using both decomposition of the unemployment rate into structural and cyclical components and Mortensen and...

Latvia has one of the highest levels of income inequality and poverty in the EU. In this article, we argue that distributional considerations, especially assistance for those really in need, have had a low priority in designing tax and benefit policy in Latvia. We estimate the distributional...