Over the last few years concern for income inequality in Europe has increased remarkably. In this context, taxation is an important redistributive instrument, and we investigate the redistributive role of direct taxes. We focus on the EU-15 countries and the evolution over the period 1998-2008,...

This paper looks at how the income distribution in countries changes when the value of publicly-provided services to households is included. We consider five major categories of public services: education, health care, social housing, childcare and elderly care. On average across OECD countries,...

For a long time in-work poverty was not associated with European welfare states. Recently, the topic has gained relevance as welfare state retrenchment and international competition in globalized economies has put increasing pressures on individuals and families. This book provides...

This book argues that active labour market policies are necessary to improve the position of the unemployed but have so far performed relatively poorly. The contributing authors seek ways to improve active labour market policy and consider three means of doing so: improving the quality by better...

For a long time in-work poverty was not associated with European welfare states. Recently, the topic has gained relevance as welfare state retrenchment and international competition in globalized economies has put increasing pressures on individuals and families. This book provides...

Conventional income distribution statistics subtract taxes from household income but do not take into account the distributional effects of the services financed through these taxes. As many of the functions of government are available to the population free of charge or at a subsidised rate,...

This report looks at the effects on the distribution of household income of those government-provided services that confer a personal benefit to users. While most of the comparative evidence of the size and evolution of income inequalities in OECD countries relies on the concept of household...

Immigrants make up one fifth of the Belgian working age population, but their labour market integration is poor. Employment rates of non-EU immigrants, in particular, are very low, and the problem extends to their native-born offspring. Further, with more precarious jobs and lower wages,...

Public support to families with pre-school children can be in the form of cash benefits (e.g. child allowances) or of “in-kind” support (e.g. care services such as kindergartens). The mix of these support measures varies greatly across OECD countries, from a cash / in-kind composition of...