Η φτώχεια και η ανισότητα στην Ελλάδα: μέτρηση, σενάρια αναδιανομής, διεθνείς συγκρίσεις και η τεχνική bootstrap

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation explores in detail, for the years 1998 – 2007, the levels, the structure and the evolution over time of poverty and inequality in Greece, and the relative position of Greece inside EE. household income and expenditure data from the last two Household Budget Surveys (HBS) conducted in 1998/99 and 2004/05 by the National Statistical Service of Greece (NSSG) and household income data from Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU SILC) survey for the years 2004 -2007 conducted by EUROSTAT are used. The individual is the unit of analysis and distributions of total equivalence expenditure and total equivalence income per capita, take into account the size and the composition of the households using “family equivalence scales”.This dissertation concludes that poverty and inequality reduced dramatically between 1998 and 2004, where Greek society and especially people in the lower edge of the distribution of income (or/and expenditure) experienced an increased prosperity. This analysis indicates that the entry in Eurozone benefited well Greek economy and the entire population. Between the years 2004 and 2007, the situation seems a little worsened, where small increments are reported THAT can be the first signs of the oncoming economic crisis that followed the end of this period. In general, Greece is constantly in the last five places of the ranking of European countries, in terms both of poverty and inequality levels, while its position worsened during that period.The dissertation results confirm results from previous studies indicating that inequality in Greece rise mainly from inequalities within rather than between population subgroups. This leads to form politics targeting the elimination of inequality within population subgroups, starting from the groups with greater internal inequality or from the groups that contribute the most in overall inequality.Of great interest in the study of poverty and inequality is the use of bootstrap technique and the statistical test of confidence intervals of means that this dissertation uses for the verification of the significance of the decrements observed in poverty and inequality indices between 1998 and 2004, at least for three population groups, the households that have at least one member with income from agricultural occupation, the households with three or more children, and the households whose head gets a pension from the Agricultural Insurance Organisation (OGA).The simulation of scenarios of increased energy prices indicates the importance of controlling energy prices, especially for gasoline and heating oil, since even small increments of 10% of their prices cause great difficulties in people with incomes around poverty line, whilst actual increments in energy prices are much larger in several periods of time. The simulation of different scenarios of income redistribution indicates, respectively, that there are redistribution scenarios with zero fiscal cost, well targeted and not expected to cause considerable social unrest.