This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-based reform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently a much higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity in marginal payroll tax rates...

The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in southern Europe, where the subsidiary role of the State in matters of family policy has implied that programmes of public assistance to poor families with children are often meagre or not available at all. The paper examines the...

This paper explores the within and between country distributional implications of an illustrative Child Basic Income (CBI) operated at EU level. Using EUROMOD, we establish that a universal payment of €50 per month per child aged under 6 could take 800,000 children in this age group out of...

We compare the distributional effects of policy changes presented as fiscal consolidation measures in nine EU countries that experienced large budget deficits following the financial crisis of the late 2000s and subsequent economic downturn, using the EU microsimulation model EUROMOD. The nine...

The severe economic crisis affecting Greece since 2009 is having an unprecedented impact in terms of job and income losses, and is widely perceived to have a comparably significant effect in terms of greater inequality and increased poverty. We provide an assessment of whether (and to what...

The current Greek crisis and the government's fiscal consolidation effort have elevated tax evasion to one of the most crucial policy issues in the domestic debate. The paper attempts to shed light on one aspect of the phenomenon, namely its distributional implications. We compare a large panel...

This paper aims to analyse the social assistance systems in five South European countries: France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. After reviewing the existing system of social assistance in each country, we apply a consistent methodology in order to estimate its impact on income...

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...

The severe economic crisis affecting Greece is widely expected to have a significant social impact in terms of greater inequality and increased poverty. We provide an early assessment of whether (and to what extent) this is the case. More specifically, we distinguish between two inter-related...