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This paper examines the short-run distributional effects of publicly provided education services in Greece using static incidence analysis. Public education is found to be inequality-reducing but the progressivity of the system withers away as we move up to higher educational levels. We employ a framework of both relative and absolute inequality measurement and discuss the merits of the latter. Under this alternative setting, primary education transfers retain their progressivity, the progressivity of secondary education transfers diminishes and tertiary education becomes clearly regressive. Lastly, we simulate the first-round fiscal and distributional effects of a hypothetical graduate tax imposed on current graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, Greece has been a popular immigrant destination; nowadays, around one-tenth of the population are immigrants - mainly from neighbouring Balkan countries, especially Albania. This large-scale immigration within a short time-period has had important social, as well as, economic consequences. The paper reviews the existing evidence and concludes that on average the economic effects of immigration were beneficial, although their distributional consequences were adverse. The main positive effects are associated with the increase in the GDP growth rate; revitalization of the agricultural sector and many small and medium enterprises; the dampening of inflationary pressures; and the short-term positive impact of immigration on the social security system. On the negative side, immigrants have helped to expand the already large informal economy, and although on aggregate their skills seem to complement those of native workers, they have tended to substitute for Greek unskilled and semi-skilled workers. This has excerbated income inequality, as well as increasing unemployment and slowing wage growth for those with low skills. Greek immigration policy has been haphazard, and measures are required to integrate the immigrants into the economic and social fabric of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct provision of public services can alter the balance of resources across income groups. We focus on the issues arising when taking account of the impact of publicly provided education services across the income distribution. We combine OECD information on spending per student in particular levels of the education system with micro data from nationwide income surveys to track the allocation of resources. We pay particular attention to the role of third-level education, and provide comparable results for seven European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distributional impact of public education in Greece using the micro-data of the 1993/94 Household Budget Survey. The aggregate distributional impact of public education is found to be progressive although the incidence varies according to the level of education under examination. In-kind transfers of education services in the fields of primary and secondary education lead to a considerable decline in inequality, whereas the distributional impact of tertiary education transfers is found to be regressive. The overall progressivity of public education transfers declined between 1988 and 1994, and almost the entire decline is driven by changes in the progressivity of tertiary education transfers. The main policy implications of the findings are outlined in the concluding section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a theoretical background for the analysis of the relationship between fertility and a number of socioeconomic factors associated with the process of economic development and analyses empirically this relationship within a cross-country framework. Fertility is found to be negatively related with female education, urbanization and family planning and positively related with the levels of infant mortality and economic development, whereas no significant relationship between fertility and female labour force participation is established. Sensitivity analysis is performed and the policy implications of the empirical findings are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three decades after the seminal article of Kuznets (1955) and one decade after the empirical investigation of Ahluwalia (1976b) the relationship between income inequality and economic development is still controversial. This paper examines the above relationship within a time-series/cross-section framework in a sample of countries which are representative of the non-centrally planned economies of the world. We use GDP per capita in 'real' UN International Comparison Project dollars as an indicator of a country's level of economic development. The results lend support to the Kuznets' inverse U-hypothesis, although other factors reflecting the institutional setting of a country are found to affect income inequality significantly during the development process as well. Similar results are obtained if we exclude developed countries from the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]