Little is known about the effectiveness of means-tested benefits in Bulgaria. Using individual and household level data, I analyse the performance of two social assistance and two means-tested child benefits. I find that the programmes reach a very small proportion of the households with incomes...

We provide evidence of the relative cost-effectiveness of different types of policy instrument in reducing poverty or limiting its increase, comparing within and between seven diverse EU countries. We do that by measuring the implications of increasing/reducing the instrument size within its...

We summarise and decompose changes in the household disposable income distribution in 2007-2011 across 27 EU countries to study the impact of the Great Recession on household incomes and the key factors contributing to it. Using microsimulation techniques and applying the EU tax-benefit model...