Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Most empirical distributional studies of well-being in developed countries rely on distributions of disposable income. From a theoretical point of view this practice is contentious since a household's command over resources is determined not only by its spending power over commodities it can buy in the market but also on resources available to the household members through non-market mechanisms such as the in-kind provisions of the welfare state and the value of private non-cash incomes. In developed market economies the most important private non-cash income component is imputed rent from owneroccupied or subsidized accommodation. Employing a wider definition of imputed rent that also allows the analyst to capture income advantages among tenants living in rentsubsidized accommodations of various sorts (including rent-free or reduced-rent households), the present paper examines the differential effects of including imputed rents in the concept of resources in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK). The results suggest that in almost all cases, the inclusion of imputed rents in the concept of resources leads to a decline in measured levels of inequality and poverty. The main beneficiaries are outright homeowners and households living in rent-free (or heavily subsidised) accommodation -most often older persons. The inclusion of imputed rents in the concept of resources does not lead to substantial changes in the ranking of the countries according to their level of inequality, despite widespread differences in the rates of home ownership and subsidization across the countries studied here. Terms of use: Documents in2

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of disposable income in another. We estimate the size and incidence of in kind or "non cash" benefits from public housing subsidies, education and health care for five European countries using comparable methods and data. Inequality in the augmented income measure is dramatically lower than in disposable income, with the effects of the three components varying in importance across countries. Adapting equivalence scales to take proper account of differences in needs for health care and education across population members reduces the scale of the effect, but does not eliminate it. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYThe usual practice when performing inter-temporal or cross-country comparisons of inequality and poverty is to rely on distributions of disposable income. This practice may be misleading since an individual's command over resources is determined not only by her spending power over commodities she can buy in the market but also by resources available to her through the in kind provisions of the welfare state as well as private non cash incomes. The contribution of cash and non-cash income components to total (augmented) income is likely to vary considerably both across time and across countries, thus introducing biases in the corresponding comparisons.The present paper provides estimates of the size and incidence of three publicly provided services (housing, education and health care) in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK). Cross-country differences are considerable. In the five countries examined in the paper, the value of their services is equal to 17.5%-26.7% of total household disposable income. Yet, in all countries, the corresponding in kind transfers appear to reduced measured inequality and (relative) poverty very substantially. The effect is more pronounced in households with children or elderly persons.Nevertheless, doubts are raised regarding the appropriateness of static incidence analysisthat is standard practice in the corresponding literature -without adjusting the equivalence scales for the extra needs of households for education and ...

There has been a shift in the public discourse of many EU countries from `poverty' to `social exclusion'. This article treats chronic cumulative disadvantage as a proxy for `social exclusion' and provides an empirical application using data from the ECHP. Social exclusion appears to be more widespread in Southern European countries with relatively underdeveloped welfare states and the countries associated with the `Liberal' welfare state regime. The results of multivariate analysis demonstrate that in most countries, lack of full-time employment, low educational qualifications, lone parenthood, non-EU citizenship and bad health are positively and significantly associated with increased risk of social exclusion. In contrast, the effect of being an elderly citizen living alone or a member of an elderly couple is found to be negatively associated with the risk of social exclusion in Northern but positively in Southern Europe. Finally, country and welfare regime effects turn out to be significant in explaining the probability of social exclusion.

This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-based reform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently a much higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity in marginal payroll tax rates by date of entry in the labor force for upper earnings workers. Using full population administrative Social Security data and a Regression Discontinuity Design, we estimate the long-term incidence and effects of marginal payroll tax rates on earnings. Standard theory predicts that, in the long run, new regime workers should bear the entire burden of the payroll tax increase (relative to old regime workers). In contrast, we find that employers compensate new regime workers for the extra employer payroll taxes but not for the extra employee payroll taxes. We do not find any evidence of labor supply responses around the discontinuity, suggesting low efficiency costs of payroll taxes. The non-standard incidence results are the same across firms of different sizes. Tax incidence, however, is standard for older workers in the new regime as they bear both the employee and employer tax. Those results, combined with a direct small survey of employers, can be explained by social norms regarding seniority-based pay which create a growing wedge between pay and productivity as workers age.