Interactions Between Policy Effects, Population Characteristics and the Tax-Benefit System: An Illustration Using Child Poverty and Child Related Policies in Romania and the Czech Republic

We investigate the impact of the Romanian and Czech family policy systems on the poverty risk of families with children. We focus on separating out the effects of policy design itself and size of benefits from the interaction between policies and population characteristics. We find that interactions between population characteristics, the wider tax benefit system and child related policies are pervasive and large. Both population characteristics and the wider tax-benefit environment can dramatically alter the antipoverty effect of a given set of policies

Children with Disabilities at Risk of Poor Oral Health in the Republic of Lithuania: A Retrospective Descriptive Service Evaluation

This retrospective service evaluation considers the oral health of children with disabilities in postSoviet Lithuania. It identifies that they have extensive dental decay and that the predominant course of dental treatment for children with disabilities is tooth extraction under general anesthetic. There is little in the way of specialist service provision, preventative care, or oral health promotion for this group. This study adds to the literature by identifying and emphasizing the impact on oral health of the sweeping economic and political changes, the move toward deinstitutionalization, and new economic trends such as a market economy. In particular, the lack of social welfare support, high levels of child poverty, poor educational outcomes, and the privatization of the oral health-care system has served to increase oral health inequity for marginalized groups. The outcome is an increase in oral health inequalities for children with disabilities and an urgent need for policy and reform

Microsimulation and Policy Analysis

We provide an overview of microsimulation approaches for assessing the effects of policy on income distribution. We focus on the role of tax-benefit policies and review the concept of microsimulation and how it contributes to the analysis of income distribution in general and policy evaluation in particular. We consider the main challenges and limitations of this approach and discuss directions for future developments

National Report: Belgium

audience: researcher, professiona

Distributional impacts of public policies : essays in ex-ante and ex-post evaluation

This PhD thesis is a series of essays on disparities in healthcare use in Luxembourg, as well as poverty and inequality effects of cash transfers to families in Lithuania. In light of the ever increasing pressures on national budgets, finding efficient and effective public policies is a major challenge – both politically and research wise. For example, diverse and up-to-date information sources must be analysed, using appropriate policy tools, such as national tax-benefit microsimulation models – so that time relevant policy evaluations are made. Furthermore, most public policies, as well as their impacts, are highly national contexts specific. This has ensuing implications for an exchange of “good practices” across the countries

The Paradox of Redistribution Revisited: For What it Matters, Targeting is Associated With Higher Levels of Redistribution The Paradox of Redistribution Revisited: For what it matters, targeting is associated with higher levels of redistribution [First dr

ABSTRACT This paper aims to show that Korpi and Palme's highly influential claim that "the more we target benefits at the poor, the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality" does no longer hold as a robust empirical generalisation. We replicate their analysis for a broader set of advanced economies and find that the relationship has become an inverse one. For what it matters, targeting is generally associated with higher levels of redistribution. The important point is that the relationship over a broad set of countries and specifications is a weak one, suggesting that the extent targeting per se may not matter as much as we have assumed since Korpi and Palme. We show our findings to be robust across a set of alternative empirical specifications and data sources. We try to make sense of this reversal, focusing on two questions: a) have the "old" welfare states changed; b) are "new" welfare states different?