To reduce the potential burden of the ageing population on public finances, the European Council set EU member states the target of increasing the senior employment rate. Considering that seniors play a major role in caring for dependent elderly people, it is appropriate to ask whether a policy...

This note studies the impact of immigration on welfare state generosity in 12 Western European countries. In estimations not coping with the possible endogeneity problem, there are indications of a negative relationship between immigration and welfare state generosity. However, when the distance...

Sickness absence has risen over the past years in Norway. One explanation put forward is that a tougher labor market represents a health hazard, while a competing hypothesis predicts that loss of job security works as a disciplinary device. In this analysis we aim to trace a causal impact of...

In this paper we analyze how the composition of labor taxation affects unemployment in a unionized economy with capital accumulation and an unemployment benefit system. We show that if the unemployment benefit system is gross Bismarckian then the unemployment rate is reduced if wage taxes are...

The present economic situation and the financial perspectives in the long term have originated a discussion about the convenience of the Spanish law of financial stability (Ley de Estabilidad Presupuestaria). This paper uses the generational accounting methodology in order to evaluate the...

We draw some lessons from the Tunisian experience of social reforms and associated civil conflict. Our main interest is the riots that occurred after subsidy cuts and their possible substitution of price subsidies by direct cash transfers. We propose new welfare indicators apt to assess policy...

This paper introduces a new methodology to target direct transfers against poverty. Our method is based on estimation methods that focus on the poor. Using data from Tunisia, we estimate ‘focused’ transfer schemes that highly improve anti-poverty targeting performances. Post-transfer poverty...

The influence of peers could play an important role in the take up of social programs. However, estimating peer effects has proven challenging given the problems of reflection, correlated unobservables, and endogenous group membership. We overcome these identification issues in the context of...