This paper considers the effects on current pensioner incomes of reforms designed to improve the long-term sustainability of public pension systems in the European Union. We use EUROMOD to simulate a set of common illustrative reforms for four countries selected on the basis of their diverse...

In recent years in the public discourse of many European countries there has been a shift in emphasis from "poverty" to "social exclusion". Broadly interpreted, "social exclusion" implies the "inability of an individual to participate in the basic political, economic and social functionings of...

Social transfers vary enormously across the EU, as has been demonstrated in earlier research. This paper analyses the comparative effects of cash transfers on inequality and poverty, using consistent household data. The analysis shows that the distributional impact of these transfers is greater...

The paper examines the mobility into and out of poverty and identifies the determinants of poverty spell beginnings and endings in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The first part of the paper offers a snapshot of poverty mobility in...

The paper analyzes the effects of individual and household characteristics on current poverty status, while controlling for initial conditions, past poverty status and unobserved heterogeneity in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The...

Non-cash incomes from either private or public sources can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. However, standard approaches to inequality measurement either neglect them or take into account only selected non-monetary items. Using data for Greece in the mid 2000s we...

The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in southern Europe, where the subsidiary role of the State in matters of family policy has implied that programmes of public assistance to poor families with children are often meagre or not available at all. The paper examines the...

International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of...

This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-based reform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently a much higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity in marginal payroll tax rates...