Back to Search
Start Over
Improving poverty reduction in Europe: What works best where?
- Source :
- Journal of European Social Policy; Feb2019, Vol. 29 Issue 1, p29-43, 15p
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- This article examines how income poverty is affected by changes to the scale of tax-benefit policies and which are the most cost-effective policies in reducing poverty or limiting its increase in seven diverse EU countries. We do that by measuring the implications of increasing/reducing the scale of each policy instrument, using microsimulation methods while holding constant the policy design and national context. We consider commonly applied policy instruments with a direct effect on household income: child benefits, social assistance, income tax lower thresholds and a benchmark case of rescaling the whole tax-benefit system. We find that the assessment of the most cost-effective instrument may depend on the measure of poverty used and the direction and scale of the change. Nevertheless, our results indicate that the options that reduce poverty most cost-effectively in most countries are increasing child benefits and social assistance, while reducing the former is a particularly poverty-increasing way of making budgetary cuts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09589287
- Volume :
- 29
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of European Social Policy
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 134311828
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928718792130