This paper explores the within and between country distributional implications of an illustrative Child Basic Income (CBI) operated at EU level. Using EUROMOD, we establish that a universal payment of €50 per month per child aged under 6 take 800,000 children in this age group out of poverty. It be financed by an EU flat tax of 0.2% on all household income, assuming that it would also be taxed nationally as income. Most member states and virtually all families with children aged under 6 would be net gainers. We simulate two versions of EU CBI, with the benefit rate of €50 per month adjusted or not for differences in purchasing power between member states. In general, fiscal flows between member states, and also poverty reduction, would be smaller under the adjusted version. The political feasibility of such a scheme might be questioned, especially within the net contributor countries. Nevertheless, for those seeking ways to strengthen solidarity across national boundaries, a scheme supporting the incomes of families with young children, wherever in the EU they might reside could be a demonstration of the EU's commitment to children, to the future (EC 2012a: 62).

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 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.

This is the seventh edition of Society at a Glance, the OECD's biennial overview of social indicators.As with its predecessors, this report addresses the growing demand for quantitative evidence on social well-being and its trends across OECD countries.It updates some indicators included in the previous six editions and introduces several new ones.Data for the other economies that are members of the G20 are included separately where available.Before the onset of the financial and economic crisis in 2007-08, social spending across the OECD area accounted for about half of all government outlays.But while there are big demands on social protection systems during all phases of the economic cycle, the need for social support measures is especially acute during deep and extended economic downturns.Against this background, this edition of Society at a Glance takes stock of available information about the social challenges emerging since the beginning of the economic crisis, and countries' policy responses to meet those challenges.Chapter 1 presents and discusses the most recent data on the social situation in OECD countries and in selected emerging economies, and it discusses how countries can make social policies more "crisis-proof".Chapter 2 provides a guide to help readers in understanding the structure of OECD social indicators.Indicators are then considered more in detail in the Chapters 3, 4,5, 6 and 7.

Avant-propos Le présent ouvrage est la septième édition du Panorama de la société, recueil d'indicateurs sociaux que l'OCDE publie tous les deux ans.Comme les précédentes éditions, ce rapport tente de répondre à la demande croissante de données quantitatives sur le bien-être social et ses tendances dans les pays de l'OCDE.Cette septième édition actualise certains indicateurs figurant dans les précédentes éditions et introduit plusieurs nouveaux indicateurs.Des données pour les autres pays qui sont membres du G20 sont présentées séparément, le cas échéant.Avant que n'éclate la crise économique et financière de 2007-08, les dépenses sociales dans la zone de l'OCDE représentaient la moitié environ de l'ensemble des dépenses publiques.Mais si la demande de protection sociale est forte durant toutes les phases du cycle économique, le besoin de mesures d'aide sociale est particulièrement aigu durant les phases de ralentissement marqué et généralisé de l'activité.Dans ce contexte, la présente édition du Panorama de la société fait le point sur les données disponibles concernant les problèmes sociaux qui se font jour depuis le début de la crise économique et les dispositions prises par les pays pour y faire face.Le chapitre 1 présente et analyse les données les plus récentes sur la situation sociale dans les pays de l'OCDE et certaines économies émergentes, et examine comment les pays peuvent rendre les politiques sociales plus résistantes aux crises.Le chapitre 2 contient un guide destiné à aider le lecteur à comprendre la structure des indicateurs sociaux de l'OCDE.Les indicateurs sont ensuite présentés plus en détail dans les chapitres 3, 4, 5, 6 et 7. Pour des informations plus précises sur les indicateurs, y compris certains qui ne figurent pas dans l'édition papier, on se reportera au site Internet de l'OCDE (www.oecd.

In recent years, child-related policies in Spain have experienced relevant changes at different government levels. The central government implemented a new universal child benefit at birth and reformed some of the most relevant policies for children living in low income households. Also, many regional governments (Comunidades AutA³nomas) have implemented their own policies to support families with children with different schemes in terms of design and generosity. All these policies have increased social protection expenditure aimed at families and children in Spain as a whole along the last decade (one of the lowest in the EU). So far, however, little is known about their impact on child poverty in Spain. Making use of the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union – EUROMOD – this paper simulates the eligibility and receipt of most of the existing monetary child-related policies at all government levels and assesses their real (for central government policies) or potential (for regional policies) effect on the reduction of child poverty in Spain. Our results underline that, even after the introduction of a universal lump-sum benefit for newborns at the central government level in 2007, in aggregate terms, central government tax credits are the main child-related policy in Spain. Results also underline that central government policies have a considerably larger role in reducing poverty risk even if policies in some regions perform best than others. In general, our simulations suggest that regional benefits and tax credits reinforce and complement the focus of central government policies on younger children, who, on the other hand, seem to be less vulnerable to poverty than older children in Spain.

We explore the redistributive effects of taxes and benefits in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) using EUROMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the EU. As well as describing redistributive effects in aggregate, we assess and compare the effectiveness of eight individual types of policy in reducing income disparities. We derive results for the 27 members of the EU using policies in effect in 2010 and present them for each country separately as well as for the EU as a whole.

This is the seventh edition of Society at a Glance, the OECD's biennial overview of social indicators.As with its predecessors, this report addresses the growing demand for quantitative evidence on social well-being and its trends across OECD countries.It updates some indicators included in the previous six editions and introduces several new ones.Data for the other economies that are members of the G20 are included separately where available.Before the onset of the financial and economic crisis in 2007-08, social spending across the OECD area accounted for about half of all government outlays.But while there are big demands on social protection systems during all phases of the economic cycle, the need for social support measures is especially acute during deep and extended economic downturns.Against this background, this edition of Society at a Glance takes stock of available information about the social challenges emerging since the beginning of the economic crisis, and countries' policy responses to meet those challenges.Chapter 1 presents and discusses the most recent data on the social situation in OECD countries and in selected emerging economies, and it discusses how countries can make social policies more "crisis-proof".Chapter 2 provides a guide to help readers in understanding the structure of OECD social indicators.Indicators are then considered more in detail in the Chapters 3, 4,5, 6 and 7.

Este artigo analisa o nível, a distribuição e a composição da carga tributária sobre o trabalho no Brasil, mostrando quantos e que tipos de trabalhadores são afetados por diferentes níveis de alíquotas efetivas. Os resultados mostram que a cunha fiscal média representa em torno de um quarto do custo total do trabalho, porém, há variações significativas entre subgrupos de trabalhadores. Por exemplo, a alíquota tributária efetiva para um trabalhador que recebe um salário mínimo e tem três ou mais filhos é igual a pouco mais de um terço da alíquota para um trabalhador com rendimento acima de 30 salários mínimos. O estudo mostra também que, comparada às cunhas fiscais dos países da União Europeia e da OCDE, a carga brasileira sobre o trabalho é uma das mais baixas, principalmente para os salários mais altos.

We compare the distributional effects of policy changes presented as fiscal consolidation measures in nine EU countries that experienced large budget deficits following the financial crisis of the late 2000s and subsequent economic downturn, using the EU microsimulation model EUROMOD. The nine countries, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania and the UK, chose different policy mixes to achieve varying degrees of fiscal consolidation. We find that the burden of fiscal consolidation brought about through the first round effects of increases in personal taxes, cuts in spending on cash benefits and reductions in public sector pay is shared differently across the income distribution in the nine countries. In Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Romania and the UK the better off lose a higher proportion of their incomes than the poor. At the other extreme, in Estonia, the poor lose a higher proportion than the rich. In Lithuania and Portugal the burden of fiscal consolidation falls more heavily on the poor and the rich than it does on those with middle incomes. Including increases in VAT alters the comparative picture by making the policy packages appear more regressive, to varying extents.

The EU’s Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), launched in 2003, was the first micro-level data set to provide comprehensive data on incomes and other social and economic domains over the enlarged EU. This paper draws on two programmes of research to ask how well the EU-SILC has met the objectives with which it was designed. We focus on three areas: sampling and design, household dynamics, and incomes. In each domain the EU-SILC forms a unique and useful resource, but we also find problems and shortcomings, some of which could be rectified relatively easily, for the majority of countries.

We compare the distributional effects of austerity measures that have been introduced in 6 EU countries in the period of large government budget deficits following the 2007-8 financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn. We explore the effects of policy changes presented as “austerity measures†in Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and the UK, using the EU microsimulation model EUROMOD and the Irish national model, SWITCH. The six countries have chosen different policy mixes to achieve varying degrees of fiscal consolidation. We focus on the first round effects of increases in personal taxes, cuts in spending on cash benefits and reductions in public sector pay across the distributions of household income. There is a range of important conceptual and consistency issues to be addressed when doing such analysis, particularly in a comparative setting. These include how to identify “austerity measures†in a consistent manner, the relevant time periods to consider, the assumptions behind the counterfactual scenarios and the scope of the policies considered. Using a set of common assumptions we find that the burden of fiscal consolidation brought about through changes in components of household disposable income is shared differently across the income distribution in the six countries. At one extreme, in Greece, the better off lose a higher proportion of their incomes than the poor and at the other, in Portugal, the poor lose a higher proportion than the rich. Bringing increases in indirect taxes into the picture can alter conclusions about the overall distributional effect, increasing the cost most for those with lower income and making the overall incidence of the measures more regressive.

In spite of there being few elements of tax or cash benefit systems in developed countries that are any longer explicitly gender-biased in a discriminatory sense, it is well recognised that they have significant gender effects. To the extent that women earn less than men on average under tax-benefit systems that are progressive, there is some redistribution from men to women overall. However, an aggregate perspective is insufficient for understanding how earning opportunities and public policies affect living arrangements at the family level in general and the circumstances of men and women in particular. Arguably, it is within the household that a gendered division of labour is most relevant. It is difficult to observe how income and other resources get allocated within households. We can, however, observe the incomes brought into the household and to what extent taxes and benefits mitigate (or indeed exacerbate) any inequality of income between men and women. We explore the effects of tax and benefit systems on differences in income and in incentives to earn income between men and women within couples in a selection of the member countries of the European Union (EU) using EUROMOD, the EU tax-benefit microsimulation model. This comparative perspective allows us to establish the relative effects of different policy regimes, given the underlying characteristics of each national population, using a consistent approach and set of incidence assumptions across countries.

Income tax reform in Brazil has mainly stressed changes in rates, aiming at increasing its progressivity. One aspect frequently overlooked is that, in the absence of adjustments of the tax rules to inflation, the level and distribution of the income tax burden can be substantially affected. We use a microsimulation model to simulate the potential revenue and distributive effects of inflation on the income tax in Brazil. Our findings suggest that if the income tax is not adjusted for inflation, progressivity would decrease but redistribution would increase due to a larger tax burden, but income inequality would not substantially change.

Even though interest in non-take up of social benefits is considerable in many European countries, the topic is under-researched in southern Europe. This article provides preliminary estimates of the extent of non-take up of two pairs of means-tested retirement benefits in Greece and Spain. The benefits examined are: (1) the minimum pension supplements pensioner social solidarity benefit EKA Sigma and complementos por minimos; and (2) the social pensions pension to uninsured elderly and pension de jubilacion no contributiva. The article finds that non-take up of social benefits in the two countries is rather extensive, examines the methodological difficulties inherent in the analysis of non-take up, and concludes with a discussion of the results and their implications.

The Brazilian government raises taxes amounting to 35% of GDP and spends more than two thirds of this on social programmes. These shares are in pair with the OECD averages and well in excess of Latin America averages. However, while tax-benefit systems in most OECD countries reduce income disparities very significantly, the Brazilian government has been much less successful in alleviating inequality and poverty. Focussing on taxes and cash transfers, this paper investigates the impact of the government budget on the income distribution in Brazil, and evaluates its efficiency and effectiveness in reducing inequality and poverty. We present BRAHMS, a new tax-benefit microsimulation model for Brazil and illustrate its use by evaluating the impact of policy on economic inequality. It is argued that microsimulation provides a valuable analytical tool for policy makers in emerging and developing countries in particular.

Tax and benefit systems in the enlarged EU vary significantly in size and structure. We examine how taxes and benefits shape income distributions in 19 EU countries, focusing on the differences between Western European countries (EU15) and Eastern European countries (Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia). We use EUROMOD, the European tax-benefit microsimulation model, which simulates taxes and benefits for representative samples of household micro-data and through a common framework which allows the analysis of cross-country differences on a comparable basis. The analysis concentrates on the distribution and composition of incomes, and the effect of taxes and benefits on poverty and inequality. JEL Classification: C81, D31, P50