The Role Of Tax And Transfers In Reducing Personal Income Inequality In Europeís Regions: Evidence From EUROMOD

In this paper we use statistical tools and graphic devices in order to give a comprehensive picture of income inequality levels in a set of 100 EU-15 regions at the end of the XX century before and after the operation of the tax-benefit. Our analysis is based on EUROMOD, the first multi-country tax-benefit model built with a common framework that includes detailed information on taxes and benefits paid and received by individuals and/or households from samples that are representative for the 15 EU countries. Our analysis focuses on intraregional inequality and it explores the relationship between regional inequality levels (both in market incomes and disposable incomes) and economic performance. Our main findings indicate that tax-benefits systems in Europe notably reduce market inequality in all EU regions and that the size of this reduction (i.e. redistributive effect) depends crucially on (i) the market inequality level of the region (positively), (ii) the relative economic performance of the region in the country (negatively) and (iii) the country to which the region belongs.European Union, Regions, inequality, redistribution, economic performance

Reforming Family Transfers in Southern Europe: Is there a Role for Universal Child benefits?

The paper examines the effect of income transfers to families in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal using a benefit-tax model. The distributional impact of actual programmes is shown to be weak, hence the scope for reform great. As an illustration, the European benefit-tax model EUROMOD is used to simulate universal child benefits equivalent to those in Britain, Denmark and Sweden. The anti-poverty effect of such benefits is found to be in proportion to their fiscal cost

Family Transfers and Child Poverty in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal

The paper examines the effect of family transfers on child poverty in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Family transfers are defined as to include non-contributory child benefits, contributory family allowances and tax credits or allowances. The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in southern Europe, where public support to poor families with children is often meagre or not available at all. The paper uses the European cross-country microsimulation model, EUROMOD, to assess the distributional impact of existing family transfers and to explore the scope for policy reforms, before it concludes with a discussion of key findings and policy implications

Family Transfers and Child Poverty in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal

The paper examines the effect of family transfers on child poverty in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Family transfers are defined as to include non-contributory child benefits, contributory family allowances and tax credits or allowances. The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in Southern Europe, where public support to poor families with children is often neagre or not available at all. The paper uses te European cross-country microsimulation model, EUROMOD, to assess the distributional impact of existing family transfers and to explore the scope for policy reforms, before it concludes with a discussion of key findings and policy applications

Equivalence of scales and inequality

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3597.4455(27) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Income inequality comparisons with dirty data The UK and Spain during the 1980s

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3597.4455(45) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Social Welfare Orderings: A Life-Cycle Perspective

Life-cycle theories emphasize the fact that consumption is allocated intertemporally, on the basis of a long-term concept of resources that differs from household income. Because life-cycle income is unobserved, the distribution of this variable cannot be recovered. It is shown that, within a suitably defined class, a predictor of life-cycle income based on household income and expenditure entails a distribution dominated in a social welfare sense by the distribution of life-cycle incomes. A predictor constructed from socio-demographic variables induces a distribution that welfare-dominates the distribution of life-cycle incomes. Copyright (c) The London School of Economics and Political Science 2005.