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IEB researchers analyse how the public sector can mitigate inequality in the presence of fiscal decentralization

Researchers at the Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB) Pilar Sorribas, Clàudia Serra, Andreu Arenas and Dirk Foremny have obtained funding from the Institute for Self-Government Studies (Institut d’Estudis de l’Autogovern, IEA) for their research project entitled “Decentralized redistribution: challenges and policies for reducing inequality”.

The aim of this project is to broaden the understanding of how the public sector can help mitigate the expected increase in inequality in a decentralized environment. Using data from Spain, the IEB researchers will analyse how the tax system can help to counteract the increases in inequality driven by the crisis, and will focus on the role that the spending budget can play.

The project will be carried out over a period of two years.

Projects linked to the territorial distribution of competences

The IEA scholarship and aid programme is designed to fund projects analysing issues such as federalism, decentralization, intergovernmental relations, territorial conflict and self-determination. It also funds studies that focus on the territorial distribution of competences to address specific aspects of institutional, political, social and economic systems.

The IEA is a research centre linked to the Catalan government which specializes in the analysis of institutions, stakeholders, and collective decision-making processes in federal and regional democracies and in the European Union, and of processes of secession.