Equal Focus on Inequality? Approaches to Distributional Impact Assessment in the National Budget Process Across the EU

Abstract

After four decades of increasing within‐country income inequality in many EU Member States, this study first aims to understand to what extent and how EU Member States make use of distributional impact assessments (DIAs) for budgetary measures. The second aim is to understand the factors that constrain the use of DIA, leading us to propose strategies for how it could be used more widely. To these ends, we perform a desk‐based study of the documents produced in the national budgeting process, which is then followed up with structured key informant interviews with those responsible for producing key budgetary documents in each of the 27 Member States of the EU. We then detail the constraints to performing more DIAs and potential solutions involving actions at both the country and EU levels. This study constitutes the first comprehensive analysis of DIA practices across the EU.

The heterogeneity of Covid-19 learning loss across Italian primary and middle schools

“…The estimates of the average learning loss in reading and mathematics presented in this study are in line with the findings reported by Borgonovi and Ferrara (2023) and Bazoli et al. (2022) , who observe a more severe learning loss for grade-8 students than for grade-5 students, when present.…”

“…Finally, previously middle performers are those who suffered the most the Covid-19 impact. The baseline results are confirmed by Bazoli et al. (2022) , who estimate the magnitude of the learning loss for grades 5, 8 and 13.…”