The 2011 World Economic Forum identified income inequality as one of the “two most serious challenges in the world”. Since the 1980s income inequality has increased in many industrialised countries. However while long-run and recent income inequality trends have been extensively researched in many countries, much less is known about the driving forces behind international differences in the level of inequality. This is all the more surprising because differences across countries within the OECD or the EU in the level of inequality remain more striking than the increases in inequality recently observed within any one industrialised country!

On November 30^th & December 1st, LISER hosted an international workshop on “Understanding International Differences in Income Inequality”. The workshop was organised in the framework of the FNR-funded project “SimDeco” which has set out to develop new methods to examine the matter of income inequality across countries and provide evidence for EU countries. It focuses particularly on the role of differences in tax-benefit systems, employment behaviour and labour market structures across countries in accounting for differences in income inequality.

With 16 papers presented, the event gathered a panel of international scholars to present some of their latest research in this area, and provided a forum to discuss the methodology and main results of the SimDeco project.

“Although this closing workshop marked the official end of a project, it also marked a beginning. The models and framework developed in the project have potential for a range of future applications and extensions (as was demonstrated during the workshop). Furthermore, inequality and social policy research will remain high on the LISER agenda: LISER’s vision for the period 2018-2022 has set ‘public policies, welfare and socio-economic inequality’ as a key area of excellence” Dr. Denisa Sologon & Dr. Philippe Van Kerm (SimDeco Project main researchers)