This paper assesses the impact on household incomes of the COVID-19 pandemic and governments’ policy responses in April 2020 in four large and severely hit European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain and the UK. We provide comparative evidence on the level of relative and absolute welfare...

This report looks at the effects on the distribution of household income of those government-provided services that confer a personal benefit to users. While most of the comparative evidence of the size and evolution of income inequalities in OECD countries relies on the concept of household...

The need for more comprehensive and integrated data on individual well-being is widely recognised. In order to identify better measures of economic performance in a complex economy and thus going Beyond GDP, Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi (2009) recommend to consider income, consumption and wealth...

Many researchers and policymakers have made strong arguments for broadening the taxes on wealth and its returns. Although the theoretical literature on (optimal) wealth taxation is growing, there exists a large void in empirical research. This paper addresses this void by analysing the...

Taxing wealth has received increased attention in both the academic and political debate, as a way to reduce inequality of both income and wealth. However, analytical tools are still underdeveloped when it comes to empirical analyses of different types of wealth-related taxes and policies. New...

This paper asks what governments in the EU Member States and some US states are doing to support workers on low wages. Using model family simulations, we assess the policy measures currently in place to guarantee an adequate disposable income to working families, taking into account minimum...