Jukka Pirttilä on social protection and taxation in times of crises

Helsinki Graduate School of Economics organises a weekly Development seminar series in Helsinki. On 6 April 2023 UNU-WIDER Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow Jukka Pirttilä presents the work in progress on the topic of Social protection and taxation in times of crises.

While the need to build up crisis resistance was already noted after the financial crisis of 2008, many countries, especially in the developing world, had to set up new support systems very swiftly after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

How well prepared were the social insurance systems in developing countries to the crisis? To what extent did some of the new COVID-19 related policies, and the existing social protection programmes, cushion households against the poverty and inequality increases associated with the crisis?  How could the tax-benefit arrangements in these countries be further developed towards offering a more comprehensive support for households when shocks occur? And where can one find suitable fiscal space to finance these programmes, especially when public finances have taken a severe hit during the pandemic?

Jukka Pirttilä is one of the authors of an upcoming book volume on social protection and taxation in the times of crises, and presents the research work produced so far on the topic.

The presentation is part of UNU-WIDER's SOUTHMOD – simulating tax and benefit policies for development project. SOUTHMOD is part of UNU-WIDER's research and capacity development programme on domestic revenue mobilization (DRM), funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (Norad).