The Role of Tax-Benefit Systems in Shaping Economic Insecurity in the European Union*

This paper aims to understand if differences in European countries' tax-benefit systems impact on individual levels of economic insecurity beyond their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, with an additional focus on households with children. We consider 29 European countries and use multilevel modelling techniques to study the simultaneous role of micro and macro determinants on a multidimensional index of economic insecurity. Our results show that larger welfare systems and generous general social risk policies for unemployment, bad health and social exclusion are correlated with lower insecurity levels, also for households with children who may receive other transfers specifically targeted to them.