Tax and social benefit policies have been instrumental over recent years to mitigate multiple shocks related to the pandemic, inflation dynamics, or the energy crisis.
They will be even more important in the context of the post-Covid recovery, the green and digital transitions, and the need to balance sustainability concerns with fairer and more inclusive societies.
At the same time, ongoing structural trends like ageing, migration or technological changes, affect the public budgets in a number of ways and require in-depth analyses for better adaptation of fiscal policies to the new reality.
We develop and use an extensive toolset in order to support the analyses of socio-economic impacts of EU policies in this context.
EUROMOD
EUROMOD is the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union that enables researchers and policy analysts to calculate, in a comparable manner, the distributional/inequality/poverty impacts of tax-benefit policies. Recent model extensions cover indirect taxes and hypothetical households. EUROMOD is maintained, updated and disseminated by JRC Fiscal Policy Analysis team and it and is broadly used by researchers and policymakers across the EU.
Other modeling tools
We develop other analytical tools, using different methodological approaches, to broaden the scope of research and policy questions we can reply. Among them:
- EUROLAB Econometric labour supply/demand model to simulate impact of fiscal policy reforms affecting employment and labour supply decisions.
- INTAXMOD Model for the simulation of inheritance and gift taxation in the context of ageing.
- Housing Taxation Database Time series database on the main elements of housing taxation in European countries.
Direct taxation and social benefits for households
The social dimension ranks high on the EU policy agenda. The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan and the objectives of the green and digital transitions, endorse social cohesion and fairness as guiding principles for policymaking in the EU. The promotion of EU social objectives should benefit from sound analyses and research emphasizing the value added of EU policy making. The JRC participates to this endeavour by using its extensive toolset and expertise in order to support the analyses of socio-economic impacts of EU policies, both at the EU and national levels for a fairer and more inclusive EU.
Taxation on consumption - including green taxation
We analyse and assess policy reforms and proposals and develop research concerning consumption taxation, in particular reforms aimed at promoting the EU green targets, including the Commission proposal for the revision of the Energy Tax Directive and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
