Most analyses of social protection are focussed on public arrangements. However, social effort is not restricted to the public domain; all kinds of private arrangements can be substitutes to public programs. OECD-data indicate that accounting for private social benefits has an equalising effect...

In most OECD-countries income inequality has increased during the last two decades. In this paper, we investigate whether changes in the overall distribution of income can be attributed to social policy measures. For most (but not all) countries we find a possible relationship between changing...

The last two decades show an trend towards a less equal income distribution in OECD. There are many causes for this trend. This paper analysis whether changes in social security systems are one of these causes. For some OECD-countries we find a relationship between changing welfare state...