BE-PARADIS

The Paradox of Belgian Inequality Studies
Belgium less unequal than others?

Members of the BE-PARADIS research contributed to the IFS Deaton Review Country Studies project. The aim of the project is to examine a broad set of inequalities in a coherent framework across the major economies of Europe and North America and how they have changed in recent decades. The project is led Led by Richard Blundell, Jonathan Cribb, and James Ziliak. Each country has written a comprehensive report into the evolution of labour market and income inequalities, and their interactions with education and gender in particular. 


The Belgium study was conducted by Bart Capéau André Decoster, Bram De Rock Jonas Vanderkelen and Toon Vanheukelom. The report Inequality in Belgium: 1985 – 2020 analyses economic inequalities in coherent framework, which can be easily compared to, and read alongside, other similar report produced for other countries in this project. 

What are the root causes of economic inequality? How did it evolve since the golden sixties? Did it take new forms? What can and should we do about it? These are some of the key questions that we shall address during this half-day conference.

 

This conference will consist of two parts. In the first one, leading academics will present research focused on various aspects of income and wealth inequality.  The second part (16:00-17:00 Brussels time; 10:00-11:00AM EST) will be a roundtable discussion on shared prosperity featuring Margrethe Vestager, André Sapir, and Gabriel Zucman.


Two members of the BE-PARADIS research team participate in the conference. Paula Gobbi is presenting in the first part on 'inheritance, Demographics, and Economic Development.  Micael Castanheira moderates the second part. 


Link to invitation.

Recent publications

We presented our findings on income inequality in Belgium, the Belgian distributional national accounts, and the importance of real estate valuation for wealth inequality. Prof. Antoine Bozio (Paris School of Economics, Institut des Politiques Publiques) and prof. Koen Caminada (Leiden University) presented new insights on inequality in France and the Netherlands respectively.


The slides and presentations can be found here.

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