In the past 30 years Costa Rica has grown steadily and social indicators have improved markedly. Well-being indicators are comparable or even above the OECD average in several dimensions, such as health, environment or life-satisfaction. This paper reviews the social progress that Costa Rica has...

The paper describes inequality trends in selected emerging economies (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa) in a range of monetary (i.e. income) and non-monetary dimensions of people’s life (i.e. education, health status, employment and subjective well-being)....

Structural trends not directly related to labour market functioning and redistribution have made a sizeable contribution to inequality and poverty in Sweden, but occupy only limited space in the income inequality debate. To fill this gap, we put a quarter of a century of rising inequality in...

Australia has seen large rises in living standards over the last decades across the whole of the income distribution. Technological change and international trade have contributed to this success, but have also brought structural change. Some industries have declined, while others flourished....

This paper provides evidence on the effects of the size and the composition of public spending on long-term growth and inequality. An estimated baseline convergence model captures the long-term effect of human capital and total investment on potential output for a panel of OECD countries. The...

This paper reviews the key issues concerning the impact of public spending and taxation on long-run growth and inequality and takes stock of existing theoretical and empirical studies. Overall, the evidence highlights that the size of the government matters for long-term growth as a too large...

While policymakers are rightly concerned about evidence of rising income concentration at the top, it is often wrongly assumed that the same rich individuals stay rich. In reality, the membership of this group are in a state of constant flux. This new study, based on more than 20 million tax...

This paper produces new evidence and stylised facts on housing, wealth accumulation and wealth distribution, relying on an in-depth analysis of micro-based data on household wealth across OECD countries. The analysis addresses several questions: i) How is homeownership and housing tenure...

Exports from China have surged substantially since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. We investigate how this expansion affected income inequality within European regions by separating the trade pressure experienced in external and domestic markets, as well as exploring the...

Spain has experienced a dramatic business cycle, starting with a large construction based boom followed by a long recession, resulting in a substantial rise in unemployment, and income and wealth inequality. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Survey of Household Finances over the period...