Abstract:

This paper addresses the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by providing timely and accurate information on Italian households’ income distribution, inequality and poverty risk, assessing the effects of policy responses during 2020. By building a unique and wide database with the latest survey, tax and administrative data at individual and firm level, and by using the micro-simulation model TAXBEN-DF from the Italian Department of Finance, the analysis nowcasts the income loss due to the economic shutdown since March 2020 and simulates most of the interventions adopted by the Government from March to December 2020. Results suggest that policy measures in response to the pandemic have been effective to limit the overall increase in income inequality and relative poverty, not being able yet to avoid a concerning polarization of incomes and large heterogeneous effects in terms of both income losses and measures’ compensation.