Minimum income schemes in Europe: is there a trade-off with activation policies?

Roberto Iacono ()

IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, 2017, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, by employing a macro-level institutional dataset on benefit levels for social assistance (SA) and minimum income protection (MIP) in 22 European countries in the period 1990–2013, I show that the adequacy of income support for low-income inactive individuals in European welfare states has been steadily decreasing since 1994. Second, the paper revisits empirically the hypothesis of a trade-off between the adequacy of out-of-work benefits and the public expenditure on active labor market policies (ALMPs). The empirical results of the fixed effects model show that the trade-off does not appear to be significant in any of the tested specifications. The results are robust to the introduction of a set of conventional controls related to the labor market. JEL Classification: H53, H55, I38.

Keywords: Social assistance; Minimum income protection; Active labor market policies; European welfare states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1186/s40174-016-0073-2

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