There is a long-standing controversy over the question of whether targeting social transfers towards the bottom part of the income distribution actually enhances or weakens their redistributive impact. Korpi and Palme have influentially claimed that "the more we target benefits at the poor, the...

To what extent can a country’s effectiveness in reducing child poverty be attributed to the size of family cash transfers (i.e. both benefits and tax instruments) or to their design? In this paper, we aim at disentangling the importance of each of these two factors, focusing on the family...

In the microsimulation literature, it is still uncommon to test the statistical significance of results. In this article we argue that this situation is both undesirable and unnecessary. Provided the parameters used in the microsimulation are exogenous, as is often the case in static...

In the microsimulation literature, it is still uncommon to test the statistical significance of results. In this note we argue that this situation is both undesirable and unnecessary. Provided the parameters used in the microsimulation are exogenous, as is often the case in static...

In the microsimulation literature, it is still uncommon to test the statistical significance of results. In this paper we argue that this situation is both undesirable and unnecessary. Provided the parameters used in the microsimulation are exogenous, as is often the case in static...

To what extent can a country’s effectiveness in reducing child poverty be attributed to the size of family cash transfers (i.e. both benefits and tax advantages) or to their design? In this paper, we disentangle the importance of each of these two factors, focusing on the family support...

We are grateful to Maryse Fesseau and colleagues from the OECD Statistics Directorate for comments on this work and to Maxime Ladaique (OECD Social Policy Division) for guidance on OECD social expenditure data. We gratefully acknowledge the suggestions provided by members of the Working Party on...

This article examines inequalities in highbrow cultural participation in 18 countries. It tests whether inequalities in such participation occur because of the status conferred by consumption of high culture, or whether they are more a result of differences in cognitive competencies....

While in-work poverty is not a new problem, the degree of attention it is receiving in Europe is more recent, reflecting at least two concurrent sources of concern (Andreβ and Lohmann 2008; OECD 2008; European Foundation 2010; Fraser et al. 2011; Crettaz 2011; European Commission 2011). Deindustrialisation,...

Against the backdrop of growing income inequalities across industrialized countries, Belgium is a remarkable outlier. While breaks in series and different data sources call for a reasonable degree of caution, there is no indication that disposable household income inequalities among the Belgian...