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  Progress on convergence in the socioeconomic dimension
  

  Socioeconomic convergence is at the root of the European project, and the need to address social convergence alongside economic convergence has risen to the top of the European policy agenda in recent years. This policy brief provides an updated picture of convergence in selected socioeconomic i...

  Socioeconomic convergence is at the root of the European project, and the need to address social convergence alongside economic convergence has risen to the top of the European policy agenda in recent years. This policy brief provides an updated picture of convergence in selected socioeconomic indicators across the EU Member States and regions. The study finds that Member States are converging towards better socioeconomic conditions, notwithstanding the negative effects of the crisis, although income inequality across the EU population has increased. The brief also discusses a possible policy option for enhancing convergence, and avoiding divergence, within the EU – a European minimum wage.

  • Published: 2019-01-25
  • Corporate Author(s): IRS (Istituto per la Ricerca Sociale) ; Eurofound (EU body or agency)
  • Subject: economic convergence, economic disparity, economic indicator, European social policy, household income, minimum pay, monetary crisis, report, socioeconomic conditions, wage determination
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  Estimation of food demand parameters in Kenya
  

  Food security is a key topic for the Kenyan economy. This report contributes to the improvement of the understanding of the demand-side drivers of food demand patterns and their evolution in respect to changes in income and prices in this country. The report provides a new estimate of expenditur...

  Food security is a key topic for the Kenyan economy. This report contributes to the improvement of the understanding of the demand-side drivers of food demand patterns and their evolution in respect to changes in income and prices in this country. The report provides a new estimate of expenditure and price elasticities for goods consumed by households in Kenya. The estimation approach employed is based on the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) which depicts the demand system in a flexible way by imposing less restrictive marginal expenditure shares. The estimations are performed for 4 different levels of commodity grouping and also at the regional level, yielding significant income and price elasticities at all levels. These estimations will contribute to improve the overall food security analysis and in particularly can be useful to enhance the demand side of economic simulation models largely employed by JRC.

  • Published: 2019-02-21
  • Corporate Author(s): Joint Research Centre (European Commission)
  • Subject: food consumption, food expenditure, food safety, food security, household consumption, household income, Kenya, nutritional needs, research report, undernourishment
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  Employment and social developments in Europe
  Quarterly review. December 2018

  • Published: 2019-03-21
  • Corporate Author(s): Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (European Commission)
  • Subject: EU employment policy, EU Member State, household income, labour market, long-term unemployment, macroeconomics, productivity, serial publication, social situation, unemployment, wage cost
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  The euro area
  Report

  Latest edition.

  The euro area is the monetary union of European Union Member States which have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender. The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999. After a transitional period of three years, when the eur...

  The euro area is the monetary union of European Union Member States which have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender. The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999. After a transitional period of three years, when the euro was the official currency but only existed as ‘book money’, the euro bank notes and coins were adopted and became the official currency on 1 January 2002 in 12 Member States1. Since then a further seven Member States have adopted the currency, with the euro area now made up of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Whilst all EU Member States are part of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and coordinate their economic policy-making to support the economic aims of the EU, the economies of the euro area Member States are more integrated. In order to realise the full benefits of the single currency, the management of monetary and economic policy within the euro area is different. The European Central Bank (ECB) is the governing authority that defines the single monetary policy of the euro area, with the primary objective of keeping prices stable. Economic policy is largely the responsibility of individual euro area countries, but national governments must coordinate their respective economic policies in order accomplish the common objectives of stability, growth and employment. Coordination of national fiscal policies is ensured notably through limits on government debt and deficit as well as guidance on how to strengthen the link between structural reforms, investment and fiscal responsibility in support of growth and jobs. Since the introduction of the euro in 2002, the European Commission has regularly conducted surveys measuring public perceptions of the euro among citizens living in the euro area countries. This Flash Eurobarometer survey represents the seventeenth in the series of surveys. It includes measures on: - Support for the euro at a national and at an EU level, and views on its impact on the European identity; - The perceived ease of handling and distinguishing euro coins and banknotes, views on the number of different value coins available, and attitudes towards the abolition of 1 and 2 cent euro coins. - Whether or not citizens convert prices from euros to their former national currency when making purchases. - The impact the euro has had in relation to travelling abroad in other EU countries – whether it has made it easier and less costly and whether it has reduced banking charges or not; - In relation to economic policy: perceptions of whether there is the appropriate amount of coordination among euro area governments, and whether EU economic policy coordination has strengthened, weakened or remained the same in recent years; - Views on the need for economic reforms; - Expectations about the current year’s inflation rate.

  • Published: 2018-11-20
  • Corporate Author(s): Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (European Commission) ; TNS Political & Social
  • Subject: economic consequence, economic policy, economic reform, EU Member State, euro, euro area, household income, inflation, monetary union, report, sample survey
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  Monetary policy and household inequality
  

  This paper considers how monetary policy produces heterogeneous effects on euro area households, depending on the composition of their income and on the components of their wealth. We first review the existing evidence on how monetary policy affects income and wealth inequality. We then illustra...

  This paper considers how monetary policy produces heterogeneous effects on euro area households, depending on the composition of their income and on the components of their wealth. We first review the existing evidence on how monetary policy affects income and wealth inequality. We then illustrate quantitatively how various channels of transmission—net interest rate exposure, intertemporal substitution and indirect income channels—affect individual euro area households. We find that the indirect income channel has an overwhelming importance, especially for households holding few or no liquid assets. The indirect income channel is therefore also a substantial driver of changes in consumption at the aggregate level.

  • Published: 2018-08-20
  • Corporate Author(s): European Central Bank
  • Subject: euro area, household, household income, monetary policy, social inequality, wealth
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  The EU-wide income distribution
  Inequality levels and decompositions

  This study analyses EU-28 and euro area-level income distribution with the latest European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data. More specifically it shows the development of inequality in net disposable incomes over the pre- and post-crisis period (2006‒2014). The ana...

  This study analyses EU-28 and euro area-level income distribution with the latest European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data. More specifically it shows the development of inequality in net disposable incomes over the pre- and post-crisis period (2006‒2014). The analysis shows that income inequality in the EU-28 as a whole was falling up until the crisis and then stabilised afterwards. In the euro area it has increased slightly over the same period. After estimating EU-28 and euro area-wide income inequality, an assessment of how large a share of it depends on between-country inequality, as opposed to within-country inequality, is carried out. The results highlight that the trend of between-country inequality, albeit starting from very different levels, has been declining in the EU-28 while slightly increasing in the euro area. The same analysis, conducted in terms of between-region versus within-region inequality, shows similar trends. Finally, the study examines the extent to which individual incomes on the European scale can be predicted by country of residence and finds evidence in line with the inequality decomposition by country, that is, country of residence by itself predicts around 1/3 of individual incomes at EU level, and its role to explain individual variability has diminished until the crisis to then stagnate in its aftermath.

  • Published: 2018-05-28
  • Corporate Author(s): Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (European Commission)
  • Subject: economic indicator, economic recession, EU employment policy, household income, income, living conditions, social inequality, social security, unemployment, welfare
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  Wealth effects in the euro area
  

  How sizable is the wealth effect on consumption in euro area countries? To address this question, we use newly available harmonized euro area wealth data and the methodology in Carroll et al. (2011b). We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of total wealth averaged across the largest...

  How sizable is the wealth effect on consumption in euro area countries? To address this question, we use newly available harmonized euro area wealth data and the methodology in Carroll et al. (2011b). We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of total wealth averaged across the largest euro area economies is around 3 cents per euro, with a marginal propensity to consume out of financial wealth significantly larger than of housing wealth. Country-group estimates document no significant differences between the largest economies and the rest of the sample. In contrast, remarkable differences emerge between periphery and core countries.

  • Published: 2018-06-22
  • Corporate Author(s): European Central Bank
  • Subject: consumption, econometrics, economic cycle, euro area, financial market, household income, macroeconomics, wealth
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  Social accounting matrix of Kenya 2014
  

  A Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is a comprehensive and economy-wide database recording data about all transactions between economic agents in a certain economy during a certain period of time. SAMs have a triple use: on the one hand, they offer in themselves a detailed description of the econom...

  A Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is a comprehensive and economy-wide database recording data about all transactions between economic agents in a certain economy during a certain period of time. SAMs have a triple use: on the one hand, they offer in themselves a detailed description of the economic structure and circular flows of the income of a country or region; on the other, a battery of indicators and multipliers can be obtained from them, applying directly intuitive linear models; and, finally, they are the reference database for the calibration and exploitation of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Models. This report presents the Social Accounting Matrix of Kenya for the year 2014, describing its specific structure and the basis for its estimation. In this sense, it is necessary to highlight the special structure of this SAM to reflect the Home Production for Home Consumption (HPHC) issue and a high disaggregation of agricultural and food sectors, both aspects so relevant in developing countries. In addition, some results of the exploitation of the SAM are presented, both descriptive (aggregate macroeconomic variables, sectoral value added and household income and consumption) and from the application of linear multipliers analysis (backward linkages, value chain decomposition and Structural Path Analysis). Finally, a complete on-line application is presented, both for the download of the SAM, and for the visualization of some indicators derived directly from it.

  • Published: 2018-04-04
  • Corporate Author(s): Joint Research Centre (European Commission)
  • Subject: consumption, database, economic model, economic sector, farming sector, food industry, household income, Kenya, macroeconomics, national income, production, regional accounting, research report
• Commission Regulation (EU) 2018/174 of 2 February 2018 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) as regards the list of target secondary variables on intergenerational transmission of disadvantages, household composition and evolution of income for 2019 (Text with EEA relevance. )

  • Published: 2018-02-02
  • Corporate Author(s): European Commission ; Eurostat (European Commission)
  • Subject: data collection, EU statistics, household, household income, living conditions, marginalisation, poverty, statistical method
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  The working poor in the European Union
  Info sheet

  The problem of working poverty is increasingly pressing given the higher average incidence of the phenomenon in the new Member States. It represents a complex and challenging issue for European societies, as it can arise due to either individual or household circumstances. Key factors for indivi...

  The problem of working poverty is increasingly pressing given the higher average incidence of the phenomenon in the new Member States. It represents a complex and challenging issue for European societies, as it can arise due to either individual or household circumstances. Key factors for individuals include their work and skills. Critical household characteristics are income and size of household. The Foundation’s project aimed to quantify the incidence and characteristics of the working poor and to identify policies aimed at combating its spread. It also examined the link between employment and social protection policies.

  • Published: 2018-01-31
  • Corporate Author(s): Eurofound (EU body or agency)
  • Subject: employment statistics, household income, low pay, social problem, social security, working poor