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...

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. This paper compares Finland’s benefit system with two benefit reform scenarios: a uniform benefit for all (“basic income”) and a...

Poverty and income inequality have worsened since the onset of the crisis. While the design of fiscal measures has mitigated the burden sharing of fiscal adjustment, as the recession has deepened unemployment has risen, earnings have declined and social tensions have increased. Getting people...

The relation between income inequality and support for redistributive policies has long being debated by social scientists, albeit with mostly contrasting findings. We shed light on this puzzle by exploiting a novel EU-28 wide survey (Eurobarometer 471) and matching it with an array of regional...