Description

CESifo – Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute at University of Munich, the PhD in Economics and Finance, Department of Economics, University of Verona and LISER – Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, in collaboration with:

• CEE-M Research Institute – University of Montpellier
• CY Cergy Paris University
• ECINEQ – Society for the Study of Economic Inequality
• European Social Science Genetics Network
• International Inequalities Institute – London School of Economics
• LIS – Luxembourg Income Study
• University of Antwerp – AIPRIL centre of excellence
• University of Bari “Aldo Moro”
• University of Rome – La Sapienza
• The World Bank Group

are glad to announce the:

Eighteenth Winter School on Inequality and Collective Welfare Theory (IT18)
Inequality and Big Challenges
January 6-11, 2025, Alba di Canazei (Dolomites)

The aim of the School is to provide junior and senior researchers on inequality and social welfare analysis with the opportunity to discuss issues concerning Big Challenges for our societies. This year, the challenges include:

• Genes-environment interactions and human capital
• Early environment, expectations, aspirations and mobility
• Poverty across the globe
• Political economy and policymaking

Program

Preliminary version of the program is available here.

Application and Participation fees

The deadline for applying is November 27th, 2024.

Information on how to apply and the participation fees is available here.

Inquiries

For any question or information, please contact: it_info@dse.univr.it.

Description

Poverty remains a critical issue worldwide, profoundly impacting not only low- and middle-income countries but also high-income ones. Addressing poverty is a top priority in global and national agendas. At the global level, the United Nations has underscored the urgency of eradicating poverty through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with Goal 1 calling for an end to poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030.

The European Union has embedded poverty reduction within its strategic frameworks, particularly through the adoption in 2022 of a headline target to be reached by 2030: a reduction of the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million, including at least 5 million children, compared to 2019.

In Luxembourg, combating poverty is a central pillar of the current government’s programme. This commitment includes measures to support low-income households, improve access to affordable housing, and ensure equitable access to quality education and healthcare, targeting vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, and migrants.

Poverty is multifaceted, requiring integrated solutions that combine economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Understanding what works in reducing poverty through sound policy evaluation is crucial for developing effective interventions. In this context, the 2024 LIS^2ER workshop on policies to fight inequality—organised annually by the LIS Cross-national Data Center and LISER—aims to provide a forum to discuss novel research on poverty measurement and policies to fight poverty.

The workshop will kick off with a session featuring the presentation of the latest World Bank flagship poverty report Poverty, Prosperity and Planet: Pathways out of the Polycrisis and of a portrait of the evolution of poverty in Luxembourg over the last 40 years on Wednesday December 11 (6:00 pm) in Luxembourg City (Abbaye de Neumünster, room la Chapelle). It will then continue in Belval the following two days with 13 invited academic presentations covering aspects related to poverty measurement (challenges, new results – both in developed and LMIC countries) and the evaluation of antipoverty policies. The final part of the conference will discuss various papers that highlight concrete examples of policy interventions and of the assessment of their impact. It will be followed by a round table on the topic “Bridging evidence and action: How to evaluate what works in the fight against poverty?”. The roundtable will elaborate on critical issues in the area of policy evaluation. The role and utility of both ex-ante and ex-post impact assessments, the use of appropriate, robust and innovative methods, and the need to invest in suitable data will be explored. The potential for mutual learning between countries facing different contexts but similar evaluation challenges in different parts of the world will be emphasised.

The workshop provisional agenda can be found here.

Confirmed speakers

Massimo Aprea (Sapienza University), Christian Bintener (National Office of Social Inclusion, Luxembourg), François Bourguignon (Paris School of Economics), Herwig Immervoll (OECD), Justina Jakštiené (Ministry of Social Security and Labour, Lithuania), Markus Jäntti (Stockholm University), Christoph Lakner (World Bank), Luis-Felipe López-Calva (World Bank), François Maniquet (UC Louvain & LISER), Eric Marlier (LISER), Ive Marx (University of Antwerp), Massimo Morelli (Bocconi University & LISER), Krista Ruffini (Georgetown University), Kitty Stewart (London School of Economics), Alessandro Toppeta (Stockholm University), Eva Vivalt (University of Toronto), Roy van der Weide (World Bank), Nobuo Yoshida (World Bank).

Registration

Registration is now closed..

Organizing Committee

• Alessio Fusco (LISER)
• Peter Lanjouw (LIS)
• Kun Lee (LIS, LISER)
• Teresa Munzi (LIS)
• Eugenio Peluso (LISER)
• Philippe Van Kerm (LIS, LISER, University of Luxembourg)

Learn more about the (LIS)2LISER initiative from here.

Inquiries

If you have any inquiries concerning the workshop, please write to lis2er@lisdatacenter.org.

Dear LISSY Users,

We would like to inform you that the LISSY system will undergo scheduled maintenance, which will take place on Monday, October 21, 2024, from 17:00 to 19:00 CET. During this time, the LISSY system will be temporarily unavailable.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,
The LIS Team

LIS is delighted to congratulate Professor Daron Acemoglu, alongside Professors Simon Johnson and James Robinson, for being awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics. This prestigious recognition was given for their research on the role of societal institutions in fostering a country’s prosperity— specifically how European colonization led to some nations being rich while others are poor.

At LIS, we are proud to have contributed to Professor Acemoglu’s past research, as he utilized the LIS data in his studies on cross-country inequality trends (see here). His research, which has made significant contributions to understanding inequality, reflects the value of high -quality data in economic analysis.

For more research utilizing LIS data on inequality, poverty, social policy, and other related topics, explore the LIS Working Papers series available here.

Updates and enhancements to the LIS and LWS databases underway

LIS has temporarily paused the addition of new data during this quarter in preparation of an upcoming update to its LIS and LWS databases. We are pleased to announce that we have been working on several updates and additions to the LIS and LWS databases, aimed at improving data quality and consistency. We appreciate the feedback received from the LIS user community, which contributed to enhancing the variable list to support state-of-the-art research projects. The following sections are concerned.

• Household composition and living arrangements: Several new variables will be added, including i) an additional household type variable, ii) several variables on single parenthood, dependent children, mother/father/partner pointers which will enrich the LIS and LWS databases. These new variables will be accompanied with the restructuring of the living arrangements variables, where variables relation and marital will be slightly updated in the whole databases for ensuring better consistency across datasets.
• Geography: New variables on standardized regions will be introduced to more effectively select datasets complying to the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS); the new variables will refer to the latest version of NUTS1/NUTS2/NUTS3, whenever applicable.
• Labour market variables: Two new variables wage1 (monthly wage, main job) and hwage1 (hourly wage, main job) will replace the variables gross1/net1 in the LIS and LWS databases. This will allow users to more smoothly run analyses on the current job characteristics. A new variable, occc1, will exclusively refer to the ISCO-08 standard, whereas the existing variable, occb1, will refer solely to the ISCO-88 standard.
• Balance Sheet (LWS Database): Several new variables will be added to the balance sheet that will allow users of the LWS data to i) distinguish transaction accounts and cash from saving accounts, ii) distinguish publicly traded stocks from other equity, and iii) analyse separately money owed to household.

The work for this update is currently ongoing and we plan to update the LIS and LWS databases and the relevant documentation including METIS within the next months, so that users can work with the updated data and documentation as soon as possible.

Stay tuned for our exciting database update in the last quarter of 2024!

by Alessandro Nardo, (University of Antwerp)

Today, nearly all European countries have means-tested minimum income schemes (MIS) in place that guarantee a basic level of income support for the least-well off. Only few comparative studies have analysed the profiles of MIS beneficiaries at the micro-level, with even less research focusing on the poor population left without income support. Using micro-data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database for 17 European countries, this article explores the recipiency of last resort means-tested income support.

Full article is available here.

by Francesco Savoia, (University of Milan and University of Bologna, Italy)

The analysis of economic inequality in Egypt has sparked an interesting debate regarding its extent and trends, generating quite a bit of controversy. Rising inequality has been cited as one of the factors behind the uprisings in Arab countries by media and academics. Using the Egyptian ERFLIS data from 1999 to 2017, Francesco Savoia further dissects the moderate and stable national inequality levels by breaking them down to the regional level.

Full article is available here.

by Davide Gritti, (University of Trento)

This article by Davide Gritti explores wealth disparities between migrant and native populations using data from the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS). It highlights significant wealth gaps, with migrants generally owning less wealth than natives across 14 countries, particularly in homeownership. The LWS database is emphasized as a valuable tool for analyzing these disparities.

Full article is available here.

by Ella-Marie Assal, (University of Antwerp)

In recent decades, income inequality has been on the rise in many European countries. One potential driver of this trend could be structural changes in the socio-demographic composition of these countries. Many nations have experienced an aging population, significant changes in household formation, and higher levels of educational attainment. In this note, Ella-Marie Assal explores how these socio-demographic changes have impacted income inequality in six continental European countries over a thirty-year period, from 1990 to 2021.

Full article is available here.

(LIS)²ER Research Associate
  lee@lisdatacenter.org
bio