Arbeitspapier

Household incomes and redistribution in the European Union: Quantifying the equalising properties of taxes and benefits

The systems of direct taxes and cash benefits in the Member States of the European Union vary considerably in size and structure. We explore their direct impacts on cross-sectional income inequality (termed redistributive effect for the purpose of this paper) using EUROMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union. This relies on harmonised household micro-data representative of each national population together with simulations of entitlements to cash benefits and liabilities for taxes and social contributions. It allows us to draw a more comprehensive - and comparable - picture of the combined effects of transfers and taxes than is usually possible. We decompose the redistributive effect of taxbenefit systems to assess and compare the effectiveness of individual policies at reducing income disparities. We derive results for the 15 old members of the European Union and present them for each country separately as well as for the EU-15 as a whole.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Reihe Ökonomie / Economics Series ; No. 184

Classification
Wirtschaft
Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
Taxation and Subsidies: Incidence
Social Security and Public Pensions
Subject
income inequality
redistribution
microsimulation
European Union
Haushaltseinkommen
Einkommensverteilung
Einkommensumverteilung
EU-Staaten
Verteilungswirkung

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Immervoll, Herwig
Levy, Horacio
Lietz, Christine
Mantovani, Daniela
O'Donoghue, Cathal
Sutherland, Holly
Verbist, Gerlinde
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS)
(where)
Vienna
(when)
2006

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Immervoll, Herwig
  • Levy, Horacio
  • Lietz, Christine
  • Mantovani, Daniela
  • O'Donoghue, Cathal
  • Sutherland, Holly
  • Verbist, Gerlinde
  • Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS)

Time of origin

  • 2006

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