This paper addresses the problem of the normative evaluation of income tax systems and income tax reforms. While most of the existing criteria, framed in the utilitarian tradition, are uniquely based on information about individual incomes, this paper, building upon the opportunity egalitarian...

We analyze different options for the design of a common unemployment insurance system for the euro area (EA). We assess their effectiveness to act as an insurance device in the presence of asymmetric macroeconomic shocks. Running counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the period...

Due to the worsening of economic crisis across European countries, the problem of poverty and the ways to tackle it returned at the centre of political and scientific debate. The level of poverty increased after the crisis, especially in Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece....

The idea of a common unemployment benefit system for the European Monetary Union (EMU) has provoked increasing interest in both the political and academic spheres because of its potential to smooth fluctuations in income across member states and to strengthen income security for the unemployed....

Policy over the past years has seen a gradual movement away from universal social benefits towards the provision of more targeted benefit schemes. Using the European tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD, this paper aims to compare the effectiveness of income-tested benefits at different...

Tax and benefit systems play an important role in determining work incentives at both, the extensive and the intensive margin of labour supply. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of work incentives in the EU. Our analysis makes use of microsimulation...

This paper aims to explore how housing allowances and mortgage interest tax relief have evolved in recent years, against the background of falling disposable incomes and rising housing costs. The analysis focuses on seven EU countries (Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden and...

Western countries' income tax systems exempt the return from investing in owner-occupied housing. Returns from other investments are instead taxed, thus distorting households’ portfolio choices, although it is argued that housing property taxation might act as a counterbalance. Based on data...

We explore the prospects for using the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) dataset as an underlying micro-database for the EU taxbenefit model, EUROMOD. This will allow expanding the policy domains currently covered in EUROMOD with dimensions like wealth taxation,...

The aim of this paper is to explore the potential of an EMU unemployment insurance scheme (EMU-UI) to improve the income protection available to individuals and their families in case of unemployment. Our analysis uses an illustrative EMU-UI scheme, which has a common design across member states...