Impact

On initiative of UNU-WIDER, I support African countries to build their own tax-benefit microsimulation models. Many low and middle-income countries are in the process of building up their social protection system. The models help policy makers to understand the system-wide impacts of policy changes, not only budget related but also on the social situation of their population.  

Find out more about the project and how to get access to the models here. Read about it in Taking the Global View or watch the video to learn more about the impact of SOUTHMOD in Mozambique. 

I have also collaborated with the Indonesian Ministry of Finance and UNICEF Indonesia in building INDOMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Indonesia. It is being used to improve evidence-based policy making in the country.

I am also working with the South African Revenue Authority to develop the microsimulation model PITMOD which uses their administrative tax return data. 

In 2024, I was invited to an event on women’s poverty risk organized by Caritas Austria and hosted by the Office of the Federal President of the Republic of Austria. The discussion focused on structural and institutional causes of female poverty and potentials for policy action. A gentle reminder to the audience was given, to move away from emotion-driven public discourses and towards evidence-based policy making, especially relevant for the representatives from parties, lobbies, media, think-tanks, social influencers, and NGOs at the beginning of an election year in Austria. 

SORESI - What would you do if you became the social minister? Together with the Austrian Social Ministry and my colleagues at the European Centre, I developed SORESI, an online micro simulation model for Austria. SORESI is a spin-off of the Austrian EUROMOD model and offers easy access to analyse the tax-benefit system in Austria and allows civil servants to carry out social impact assessment of reforms. Find a short description here. An offline version of the model is also used by the 'Budgetdienst' of the Austrian Parliament for social impact assessment.

One of the EU’s headline targets is the substantial reduction of poverty. Data to monitor the progress is, however, only available with a 2 year time lag. The EUROMOD team developed a methodology for "nowcasting" changes in the income distribution and poverty risk which provides timely information on the social situation in EU countries. 

The European Commission is building on this toolbox and produces indicators as experimental statistics. From 2016-2021, I was member of the Eurostat Task Force on Flash estimates on income and poverty to support this process.  

Read our Working Paper or Blog and watch the short video produced for the 2018 University of Essex Impact Award where our project (together with Holly Sutherland and Chrysa Leventi) got short-listed for the best international impact. Video produced by University of Essex.