Tell us a bit about you - what is your background?

Nizamul Islam: I studied at the School of Economics and Commercial Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where I obtained my PhD in economics. At the University of Gothenburg, I also served as a post doc research fellow and worked with a model of the fuel market that needs to have both a demand equation and a tax setting equation. Since 2007, I have been a researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio Economic Research (LISER). I specializes in behavioral Micro simulation, and have expertise in Discrete Choice Labor supply model, Optimal Taxation, Poverty dynamics.

Anne-Sophie Genevois: I hold a Bachelor Degree in Econometrics from the University of Rennes and a Master Degree in Statistics and Information Systems from the University of Lyon. I did my Master Degree training at the Liser (formerly CEPS/instead) where I was hired as research associate. I began in labour market department then I was transferred to living conditions department. I have more than 18 years of experience in working with complex data sets, surveys. I specialized over time to become one of the key experts in Luxembourg’s social security register data provided by the Ministry of Social Security.

Anasse El Maslohi: I am from Lyon in France; there I studied statistics and data processing at the university Lumière Lyon 2. I had a short experience as a statistical analyst at A+A Research in the same city and after I moved to Luxembourg to join the Liser (formerly CEPS/instead) in 2009 as a Data manager. I worked my first 6 years there in the UDM department (Urban Development and Mobility) before integrating the Data Centre where I continue to be a support to researchers and work in implementation of surveys.

When and what was your first contact with EUROMOD?

Nizamul Islam: In 2007, I was hired in REDIS project at LISER to develop a discrete choice labour supply model using EUROMOD. So far I remember, this is how I connected with EUROMOD.

Anne-Sophie Genevois: In 2015, the head of Euromod of LISER needed help to build the Euromod input base of Luxembourg. I did not know Stata programming but as I was familiar with the SILC databases and as I used to work with the data, he asked me to join the Luxembourg national team. This is how I joined the Euromod adventure.

Anasse El Maslohi: I started my contribution in 2016 when the previous team leader of the Luxembourgish national team, Philippe Liegeois, asked me to collect the macro data necessary to make comparison with the model results. It was my first contact with the world of microsimulation and I quickly became interested.

What are your main responsibilities and what is your experience with EUROMOD?

Nizamul Islam: I have been working as a EUROMOD team member since 2013. Currently I am the country coordinator of the project “Technical Support for the Development and Update of EUROMOD LUXEMBOURG“ where I take care policy implementation as well as supervise the project as a whole.

Anne-Sophie Genevois: My task is to create each year the Luxembourgish EUROMOD data input.

Anasse El Maslohi: As I said before, I began with macro-validation data collection. Since then, I am also in charge of updating the Country Report with social parameters.

Would you like to share any recent highlights for your country?

The Two Most Important Issues of Luxembourg tax-benefit system are: First, 46% of the country's workforce consisted of cross-border commuters. These cross-border commuters contribute substantially to the Luxembourg economy, in terms output, consumption and tax revenue, but they are not well covered by official statistics. Second 4% of the resident active population (international civil servants) are facing tax-benefit systems different from the national one and researches have no access to relevant external sources with regard either their contributions to the social security systems (both national and international) at large or the benefits they are entitled to.