This study evaluates which type of benefit-a universal benefit, a proxy mean-tested benefit, or a categorical benefit- better cushions the poverty effects of income shocks in a developing economy. We compare the effectiveness of the three benefit schemes on poverty first conceptually and then by...

Using official information published by Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC, we construct a database of officials who have been found guilty of corruption in China in the period 2012-21 with their personal characteristics and the amount of embezzled funds. We use it to...

This paper analyzes the evolution of global interpersonal income inequality in the last decades. While some authors characterize the period 2000-2020 as an "age of convergence" (Milanovic, 2022), others argue that global inequality has remained constant (Chancel & Piketty, 2021) or even...

Basic income advocates see a universal income grant, no questions asked, as bringing many potential benefits, not in the least as an ironclad protection against poverty, if set high enough. It is hard to know with any certainty what a world with a sizeable basic income would look like but we can...

We examine the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated tax-benefit measures in seven sub-Saharan African countries, focusing on the onset of the crisis. We evaluate impacts on disposable incomes, considering variations across income groups; assess the effectiveness of...

After an economically tough start into the new millennium, Germany experienced an unprecedented employment boom after 2005 only stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Persistently high levels of inequality despite a booming labour market and drastically falling unemployment rates constituted a...

We analyse the UK policy response to Covid-19 and its impact on household incomes, as of late April 2020, using microsimulation methods. We estimate that households will lose a substantial share of their net income (8% on average). The proportional losses are largest for higher-income families....

There are two main sources of data on income distribution. Household based surveys report mainly on inequality in equivalised household level disposable income. Top income shares, on the other hand, focus on the tax unit as the unit of analysis, because administrative records are obtained from...

The highly dynamic nature of the COVID-19 crisis poses an unprecedented challenge to policy makers around the world to take appropriate income-stabilizing countermeasures. To properly design such policy measures, it is important to quantify their effects in real-time. However, data on the...

The highly dynamic nature of the COVID-19 crisis poses an unprecedented challenge to policy makers around the world to take appropriate income-stabilizing countermeasures. To properly design such policy measures, it is important to quantify their effects in real-time. However, data on the...