IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hdl/wpaper/2312.html

Silent elements of policy change: inflation and uprating mechanisms in the Low Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Bea Cantillon;
  • Anna Lemmens;
  • Wouter Neelen;
  • Rebecca van den Broeck;

Abstract

Policy responses to the inflation crisis in Belgium and the Netherlands show great similarities but also significant differences. In both countries responses were quick and substantial. Measures covered prices more than household incomes while universal, not earmarked measures exceeded selective interventions. However, there were also major differences between the two countries. Because Belgium, unlike the Netherlands, could fall back on the mechanism of automatic indexation of wages and social benefits it relied more on existing universal policy instruments while in the Netherlands more targeted ad hoc measures were taken which also allowed for innovation in policy making. These different policy paths have their origins in the 1980s when policy models began to diverge and different legacies emerged.

Suggested Citation

  • Bea Cantillon; & Anna Lemmens; & Wouter Neelen; & Rebecca van den Broeck;, 2023. "Silent elements of policy change: inflation and uprating mechanisms in the Low Countries," Working Papers 2312, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    • Handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:2312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repository.uantwerpen.be/docman/irua/bb5435motoM01
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alari Paulus & Holly Sutherland & Iva Tasseva, 2020. "Indexing Out of Poverty? Fiscal Drag and Benefit Erosion in Cross‐National Perspective," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(2), pages 311-333, June.
    2. Lévay, Petra Zsuzsa & Vanhille, Josefine & Goedemé, Tim & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2021. "The association between the carbon footprint and the socio-economic characteristics of Belgian households," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    3. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bea Cantillon;, 2022. "The Tragic Decline of the Poverty Reducing Capacity of the Welfare State: Lessons from Two Decades of Social Policy Research," Working Papers 2201, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    2. Bruch, Sarah K. & van der Naald, Joseph & Gornick, Janet C., 2022. "Poverty Reduction through Federal and State Policy Mechanisms: Variation Over Time and Across the U.S. States," SocArXiv jz5xp, Center for Open Science.
    3. Brady, David, 2023. "Poverty, not the poor," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 9(34), pages 1-17.
    4. Mona Sandbæk, 2017. "European Policies to Promote Children’s Rights and Combat Child Poverty," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-13, July.
    5. Cathal O’Donoghue & Beenish Amjad & Jules Linden & Nora Lustig & Denisa M Sologon & Yang Wang & Zeynep Gizem Can, 2025. "The Distributional Impact of Inflation in Pakistan: A Case Study of a New Price Focused Microsimulation Framework, PRICES," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 18(3), pages 102-131.
    6. García-Miralles, Esteban & Freier, Maximilian & Riscado, Sara & Leventi, Chrysa & Mazzon, Alberto & Abela, Glenn & Boyd, Laura & Brusbārde, Baiba & Cochard, Marion & Cornille, David & Dicarlo, Emanuel, 2026. "Fiscal drag in theory and in practice: A European perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    7. Jin Wook Kim & Young Jun Choi, 2008. "Private Transfers and Emerging Welfare States in East Asia: Comparative Perspectives," LIS Working papers 507, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Anna Wildowicz-Szumarska, 2022. "Is redistributive policy of EU welfare state effective in tackling income inequality? A panel data analysis," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 17(1), pages 81-101, March.
    9. Andreas Bergh, 2008. "Explaining the Survival of the Swedish Welfare State: Maintaining Political Support Through Incremental Change," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(3), pages 233-254.
    10. Leena Eklund Karlsson & Anne Leena Ikonen & Kothar Mohammed Alqahtani & Pernille Tanggaard Andersen & Subash Thapa, 2020. "Health Equity Lens Embedded in the Public Health Policies of Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Document Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    11. Maggie Ka-Wai Lau & Kee-Lee Chou, 2019. "Targeting, Universalism and Child Poverty in Hong Kong," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(1), pages 255-275, February.
    12. Cok Vrooman, 2009. "Poverty and Institutional Regimes A Generalised Budget Approach in 11 Countries," LIS Working papers 518, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Paula Saikkonen & Minna Ylikännö, 2020. "Is There Room for Targeting within Universalism? Finnish Social Assistance Recipients as Social Citizens," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 145-154.
    14. Pottier, Antonin, 2022. "Expenditure elasticity and income elasticity of GHG emissions: A survey of literature on household carbon footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    15. Malte Luebker, 2019. "Can the Structure of Inequality Explain Fiscal Redistribution? Revisiting the Social Affinity Hypothesis," LIS Working papers 762, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    16. Malte Luebker, 2014. "Income Inequality, Redistribution, and Poverty: Contrasting Rational Choice and Behavioral Perspectives," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(1), pages 133-154, March.
    17. Michaël Zemmour, 2015. "Economie politique du financement progressif de la protection sociale," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-01205217, HAL.
    18. Wim Van Lancker & Joris Ghysels, 2013. "Great expectations, but how to achieve them? Explaining patterns of inequality in childcare use across 31 developed countries," Working Papers 1305, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    19. Massimo Baldini & Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli, 2020. "The scars of scarcity in the short run: an empirical investigation across Europe," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 1033-1069, October.
    20. Koen Caminada & Kees Goudswaard & Chen Wang & Jinxian Wang, 2019. "Income Inequality and Fiscal Redistribution in 31 Countries After the Crisis," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 61(1), pages 119-148, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:2312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Santiago Burone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csbuabe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.