What are the effects of the Greek crisis on the level and the structure of inequality and poverty? In this seminar Professor Panos Tsakloglou will present the findings of his research and argue that unlike what is often heard in the public discourse, inter-temporal changes in inequality are not always clear.
Most indices record an increase in the level of inequality and the effect is larger when the indices used are relatively more sensitive to changes close to the bottom of the distribution. Again unlike claims often made in the public discourse, the elderly improved their relative position in the income distribution while there was substantial deterioration in the relative position of the enlarged group of the unemployed. In most cases the contribution of disparities “between population groups” to aggregate inequality declined. All poverty indicators suggest that poverty increased sharply, especially when “anchored” poverty lines are used. Despite an increase in the population share of households headed by pensioners, their contribution to aggregate poverty declined considerably, with a corresponding increase in the contribution of households headed by unemployed persons.
Panos Tsakloglou is a Professor in the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. His research focuses on questions related to the redistributive role of the state (inequality, poverty, social exclusion, taxation and transfers in kind) and the labour market (determinants of unemployment and returns to education. He has published over ninety articles in scholarly journals and contributions to collective volumes, participated in a large number of conferences and workshops and has been a partner in over fifty international and national research and consultancy projects. He is Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA, Bonn) and the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and Senior Research Fellow of the Hellenic Observatory (LSE, London). During the period 2012-2014 he was Chairman of the Greek Government’s Council of Economic Advisors and member of the EU Economic and Financial Committee (EFC) and Eurogroup Working Group (EWG) as well as alternate member of Ecofin and Eurogroup. He has also been Social Policy advisor to Prime Ministers G. Papandreou (2010-2011) and L. Papademos (2011-2012) and a member of the EU Economic Policy Committee (EPC, 2010-2011). Further, he was member of the Greek Government’s Council of Advisors on Employment and Social Policy (2001-2002), National Council for Research and Technology (2001-2005) Council of Economic Advisors (2002-2004 and 2009-2012) and member of the Independent Authority for the Evaluation of Tertiary Education (2006-2009).
Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis is an Associate Professor in Political Economy at the European Institute, LSE. He is an economist and economic geographer by training. He holds a PhD in Economic Geography (2002, London School of Economics, UK) an MSc in Economics (1996, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece) and a BSc in Economics (1994, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece). Before joining the European Institute in 2004 he was Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has previously worked as Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and the University of Reading and as a Course Lecturer in the Department of Geography at LSE.
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Distributional Changes in Turbulent Times: Greece 2007-2016
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The Hellenic Observatory (@HO_LSE) is internationally recognised as one of the premier research centres on contemporary Greece and Cyprus. It engages in a range of activities, including developing and supporting academic and policy-related research; organisation of conferences, seminars and workshops; academic exchange through visiting fellowships and internships; as well as teaching at the graduate level through LSE's European Institute.
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