Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/324449 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
EUROMOD Working Paper No. EM 02/25
Publisher: 
University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), Colchester
Abstract: 
This paper analyses the effect of the COVID-19-induced labour market shock on household income, the at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rate for children in Austria, and the buffering effect of the Austrian tax-benefit system. We apply Paulus & Tasseva's (2020) decomposition analysis based on EUROMOD simulations and propose a new approach to adjust Austrian EU-SILC data to control for benefit payments included in income variables. Our results indicate that automatic stabilisers and discretionary policy measures protected households with children from significant market income shocks, preventing an increase in child poverty between 2019 and 2020. However, comparing 2019 and 2021, the tax-benefit system was less successful in protecting lower-income families, resulting in an increase in the child AROP rate. Furthermore, we show that not adjusting input data would overestimate disposable income increases and distort the effects of discretionary policies and automatic stabilisers.
Subjects: 
automatic stabilisers
discretionary policy changes
decomposition
COVID-19
child poverty
JEL: 
C81
D31
H55
I32
I38
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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