The rich and the poor in the EU and the Great Recession: evidence from a Panel Analysis

This paper proposes a theoretical framework of the factors affecting the gap between the rich and the poor in the European Union, and utilizes a twelve-year panel (2000-2012) of 27 countries to identify the short-term effects of the macroeconomic performance, the level of household income inequality, and the social protection expenditure, controlling for several structural factors of income disparities. It is assessed their impact on the bottom, median and top shares of household income; it is found a different effect of the three core determinants before the Great Recession and during the crisis years, and a different public commitment depending on the type of welfare regime.