Why do richer countries spend a higher share of their income on social protection than poor countries A newly assembled dataset on social protection spending for 142 countries since 1995 allows an exploration of alternate hypotheses, treating the pandemic period separately, as it entailed a...

This paper uses a vulnerability-based approach to analyze the evolution of the middle class in Europe between 2005-08 and 2015-18. The analysis reveals that, on average, the income level needed to ensure a low probability of falling into poverty-also understood as the vulnerability...

Workers have the right to take up any job offer in their country of citizenship but not to rent out that right. This paper shows that relaxing this restriction using a two-sided competitive market in work permits can provide a basic income guarantee for workers in migration-destination...

This paper analyzes the relationship between intergenerational educational mobility and long-term growth across the world using different mobility measures, comparing absolute mobility indicators with relative mobility indicators. The analysis is carried out across a panel of 68 countries over...

Twenty-seven countries have reached high-income status since 1990. Ten of these are in the Europe and Central Asia region and have joined the European Union. Another 20 in the region have become more prosperous since the 1990s. However, their transition to high-income status has been delayed....

This paper examines the effectiveness of income protection and job protection policies for the post-pandemic economic recovery of the second half of 2020 through 2021. The paper is based on a new dataset of the budgets of social protection programs implemented as a part of the pandemic stimulus...

The claim that social protection is a luxury good—with a national income elasticity exceeding unity—has been influential. The paper tests the “luxury good hypothesis” using newly-assembled data on social protection spending across countries since 1995, treating the pandemic period...

This paper uses a newly assembled data set on various types of social protection spending in 154 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 to analyze the effect of the electoral cycle on the size and composition of the social protection stimulus budget. The analysis shows that the...