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This paper aims to understand whether a shift towards a more balanced cash transfer and service-based welfare system is valuable in terms of reducing income inequality and what factors mostly contribute to the income inequality evolution. To examine this, I first impute the monetary values of in-kind benefits and then reassess Gini coefficients across countries and welfare regimes. I also compare the role of cash transfers by functions and, more importantly, by how they are allocated. By means of factor source decomposition, the elasticities confirm wages as being the income source that creates most inequalities, while taxes play the most equalising role together with cash transfers. However, universal services such as healthcare and compulsory education outperform most of the cash transfers included in the analysis, with a stronger effect in the Mediterranean countries. Although in-kind services play a marginal role in explaining the changes in the Gini coefficient between 2008 and 2017, results suggest that a coordinated view of cash transfers and public services, as well as increasing the share of non-contributory means tested transfers, can reduce income inequality in all welfare regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of pooling resources and sharing risks to provide universal services according to need not ability to pay was at the heart of the post-war settlement. However, decades of market ideology and deep spending cuts have left most services starved of power and resources. Universal Basic Services (UBS) offers a principled framework for policy and practice that aims to ensure everyone has access to life's essentials. Based on need theory it combines universality with sufficiency to provide a secure social foundation for all within planetary boundaries. Needs are met in different ways, combining collective and individual measures, as illustrated by examples of childcare, housing and food. UBS can be combined with an income guarantee to ensure no-one's income falls below an agreed level of sufficiency. Cash and services, which represent a 'social wage', are best understood as two sides of the same coin, supporting rather than competing with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyze redistribution within the Austrian tax-benefits system. In this work, we take a comprehensive view and include not only direct taxation and cash benefits but also indirect taxes and in-kind transfers. We look at two kinds of redistribution: between households belonging to different income groups, and between generations, taking a life-cycle perspective. Our analysis shows that indirect taxes (as understood in previous literature) have a regressive effect on the tax-benefits system. In contrast, in-kind benefits seem to have a progressive effect. To analyze the impact of both, we extend our income concept to include both indirect taxes and in-kind benefits. If we look at the distributional impact, we find that the inequality-enhancing effect of indirect taxes is more than offset by the inequality-reducing effect of in-kind benefits. The Gini coefficient increases from 0.24 to 0.26 due to indirect taxes, but when adding in-kind benefits, the Gini coefficient is reduced to 0.23. The overall effect of both indirect taxes and in-kind benefits is progressive. • We analyze effect of direct taxation, cash and in-kind benefits, and indirect taxes. • Indirect taxes have a regressive effect; in-kind benefits have a progressive effect. • Effect of indirect taxes is more than off-set by the effect of in-kind benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opportunity to use public services supports older people's livelihoods, although out-of-pocket fees can be a burden, especially for low-income pensioners. In this article, we analyse the use of health and social care services among the elderly in Finland. The objectives are two-fold: first, to study the distribution of public spending on services across income groups, and second, to investigate the related costs to the service-user. The article contributes to the debate on the welfare states' redistributive function. The study is based on register data covering the total Finnish population in 2015. In our descriptive analysis, we focus on the distribution of the cost of production (based on detailed unit costs), user fees (calculated based on legislation) as well as reimbursements by social insurance and out-of-pocket payments for medicine, private services and travel costs. The results show that the amount of in-kind benefits is the largest in the two bottom income quintiles both in absolute and relative terms. We also see that the related costs to the client are small in relation to the monetary value of the service, although they amount to 9% of the disposable income in the lowest income quintile. It is noteworthy that benefits are highly concentrated on a small group of individuals. Public services create an important context for the evaluation of adequacy of cash income. Likewise, when we want to understand economic conditions of elderly people in a more comprehensive way, studying the share of disposable income going to health and social care is one important dimension. However, we also argue that we need to be cautious when making claims about redistribution through public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to alleviate child poverty, contemporary European welfare states have shifted their focus increasingly towards child-centred investment strategies. However, studies examining the generosity of welfare states to families with children focus mainly on cash benefit packages, or on government expenditure, while not taking into account the actual out-of-pocket costs families have to make to fulfil their needs. This article aims at contributing to existing studies by: (1) empirically assessing the needs and costs of children across welfare states by making use of cross-nationally comparable reference budgets, while taking into account publicly provided or subsidised services; (2) simulating the cash benefits and taxes that affect households with children through the tax–benefit system, by making use of the new Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT) in EUROMOD; and (3) combining both types of information in order to compare the essential out-of-pocket costs for children between 6 and 18 years old with the simulated cash benefit packages. We propose a new indicator that can be used to assess welfare state generosity to families with children: the child cost compensation indicator. The use of the indicator is empirically illustrated by comparing six European welfare states: Belgium, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Spain. The article shows that, even though with important cross-national variation, cash transfers generally amount to less than 60 percent of the cost of children. Although in five out of six countries support for families is higher at the lower end of the income distribution, for households living on a low gross wage, the income of a family with children is less adequate compared to a similar childless family and is in many cases insufficient to participate adequately in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some scholars have found that government post‐disaster assistance supports the incumbent, others have shown that incumbent effects among beneficiaries are imperceptible or negative. This article contributes to this debate by using a regression discontinuity design of households affected by Tropical Cyclone Winston in Fiji to show that the type of assistance provided is an important variable in understanding the effects of aid on perceptions of the government. Residents of Fiji who received a post‐disaster cash transfer are up to 20 per cent more likely to be very satisfied with the government than are those who did not. The probability further increases if the cash transfer was provided along with in‐kind benefits or vouchers, but it is not affected if beneficiaries were also encouraged to use their own pension savings. This paper provides evidence in favour of the 'attentive citizen' theory by demonstrating that beneficiaries actively appraise government responses; it also reveals possible effects of elite capture on the relationship between the government and beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, provides in-kind benefits that can generally be utilized for Food At Home (FAH) only. According to economic theory, SNAP benefits are fungible with cash for inframarginal households which may allow participants to spend benefits on non-FAH items. However, empirical evidence for this theory is mixed. This paper exploits an underutilized source of state-level variation, the early-2000 s recession, to determine the impact of SNAP participation on household Food Away From Home (FAFH) consumption. In a difference in difference framework, I compare households in high post-recession SNAP growth states to households in low post-recession SNAP growth states. The results show that SNAP participation causes a significant decrease in FAFH expenditure and FAFH’s share of total food expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism and hunting both generate substantial revenues for communities and private operators in Africa, but few studies have quantitatively examined the trade-offs and synergies that may result from these two activities. We evaluated financial and in-kind benefit streams from tourism and hunting on 77 communal conservancies in Namibia from 1998 to 2013, where community-based wildlife conservation has been promoted as a land-use that complements traditional subsistence agriculture. We used data collected annually for all communal conservancies to characterize whether benefits were derived from hunting or tourism. We classified these benefits into 3 broad classes and examined how benefits flowed to stakeholders within communities under the status quo and under a simulated ban on hunting. Across all conservancies, total benefits from hunting and tourism increased at roughly the same rate, although conservancies typically started generating benefits from hunting within 3 years of formation as opposed to after 6 years for tourism. Disaggregation of data revealed that the main benefits from hunting were income for conservancy management and food in the form of meat for the community at large. The majority of tourism benefits were salaried jobs at lodges. A simulated ban on trophy hunting significantly reduced the number of conservancies that could cover their operating costs, whereas eliminating income from tourism did not have as severe an effect. Given that the benefits generated from hunting and tourism typically begin at different times in a conservancy's life-span (earlier vs. later, respectively) and flow to different segments of local communities, these 2 activities together may provide the greatest incentives for conservation on communal lands in Namibia. A singular focus on either hunting or tourism would reduce the value of wildlife as a competitive land-use option and have grave repercussions for the viability of community-based conservation efforts in Namibia, and possibly other parts of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper performs an assessment and imputation of the benefits produced to the individuals and households well-being by the public services provision. This analysis is very relevant in the current framework of economic crisis of the European economies. Although most of the papers in the literature compare countries, decentralization processes are included in this paper by accounting the effect of public expenditure on regional health care and education upon the levels of inequality and rates of poverty in each Spanish region. This case is relevant because of the high decentralization degree of the Spanish political structure and the persistent regional disparities. The results show a clear downward tendency in both phenomena following imputation, although education shows a greater impact. Furthermore, a decomposition, used in this context for the first time, of the effects shows the very relevant redistributive effect of this public expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring the total impact of health insurance receipt on household labor supply is important in an era of increased access to publicly provided and subsidized insurance. Although government expansion of health insurance to older workers leads to direct labor supply reductions for recipients, there may be spillover effects on the labor supply of uncovered spouses. While the most basic model predicts a decrease in overall household work hours, financial incentives such as credit constraints, target income levels, and the need for own health insurance suggest that spousal labor supply might increase. In contrast, complementarities of spousal leisure would predict a decrease in labor supply for both spouses. Utilizing a mid-1990s expansion of health insurance for U.S. veterans, we provide evidence on the effects of public insurance availability on the labor supply of spouses. Using data from the Current Population Survey and Health and Retirement Study, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy to compare the labor market behavior of the wives of older male veterans and non-veterans before and after the VA health benefits expansion. Although husbands' labor supply decreases, wives' labor supply increases, suggesting that financial incentives dominate complementarities of spousal leisure. This effect is strongest for wives with lower education levels and lower levels of household wealth and those who were not previously employed full-time. These findings have implications for government programs such as Medicare and Social Security and the Affordable Care Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how the distribution of income changes when the standard disposable income (DI) is replaced by an extended income (EI) concept that includes the three “I”s: indirect taxes, imputed rent, and in-kind benefits. Second, it assesses the distributional effects of the main types of tax-benefit instruments under different income concepts. The analysis covers three European countries (Belgium, Greece, and the United Kingdom) characterized by substantially different tax-benefit systems. The overall redistributive effect of the tax-benefit systems depends heavily on the income concept considered and the differences across countries are smaller when considering the EI. Moreover, the common use of a narrower income concept, such as the DI, can lead to the overestimation of the redistributive effect of the cash tax-benefit instruments (in relative terms), the extent of this varying across countries, due to the size and distribution of three “I”s and the adoption of the needs-adjusted equivalence scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gini index is the most common method for estimating the level of income inequality in countries. In this article, we suggest a simple modification that takes into account the moderating effect of in-kind government benefits. Unlike other studies that use micro-level data that are rarely available for many countries or over a period of time, the proposed Modified Gini (MGINI) index could be calculated using just the regularly available data for each country. Such data include the original Gini coefficient, government consumption expenditures, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. This modified version of the Gini index allows us to calculate the level of inequality more precisely and make better comparisons between countries and over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]