The systems of direct taxes and cash benefits in the Member States of the European Union vary considerably in size and structure. We explore their direct impacts on cross-sectional income inequality (termed "redistributive effect" for the purpose of this paper) using EUROMOD, a tax-benefit...

By the mid-1990s the potential and usefulness of microsimulation models for researching tax-benefit systems had found widespread acceptance. Nevertheless, models were not widely available for independent or academic research in all countries of the European Union (EU). Even more important,...

The systems of direct taxes and cash benefits in the Member States of the European Union vary considerably in size and structure. We explore their direct impacts on cross-sectional income inequality (termed redistributive effect for the purpose of this paper) using EUROMOD, a tax-benefit...

The authors use the European Union-wide tax-benefit model, EUROMOD, to establish baseline rates of relative poverty in 1998 for each of the Member States and then explore their sensitivity to (a) an increase in unemployment, (b) real income growth and (c) an increase in earnings inequality. They...

In empirical analysis, the Kakwani index is the most frequently used indicator for comparing progressivity across countries and over time. The Kakwani is often assumed to measure to what extent a policy design is targeted to the poor. It has, however, a major drawback: it is not defined for net...

This paper considers the effects on current pensioner incomes of reforms designed to improve the long-term sustainability of public pension systems in the European Union. We use EUROMOD to simulate a set of common illustrative reforms for four countries selected on the basis of their diverse...