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

The European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research (the European Centre) is an intergovernmental organisation affiliated to the United Nations. Its purpose is to foster the collaboration in social welfare between governments and organisations by: providing applied social science and comparative empirical research; forging the evidence-base for social policy making and mutual learning; and initiating future-oriented public policy debates by networking.

Michael Fuchs: I’m a researcher at the European Centre for Welfare Policy and Research since 2000 and a member of the Austrian EUROMOD country team. I studied Sociology and my research interests are social insurance related benefits, family policy, social assistance, and minimum income benefits as well as quantitative data analysis and microsimulation of taxes and benefits.

Leonard Geyer: My background is in comparative political economy and labour market policy. I studied European studies in Maastricht and political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences before pursuing a PhD on the political economy of active labour market policy for young people at the University of Bamberg.

Felix Wohlgemuth: I studied Political Science at Heidelberg University and Comparative Social Policy and Welfare at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Tampere University and Mykolas Romeris University. Currently I’m finishing my PhD in Political Science at the Johannes Kepler University Linz and work as researcher at the European Centre. I’m interested in the distributive effects of social policies, in particular of family policies, and also in the comparison of institutional and political context of social policy making.

When and what was your first contact with EUROMOD?

Michael Fuchs: My first contact was a small meeting in January 2002 in Cambridge (together with Herwig Immervoll I drove by car and ferry). In the same year I participated in the regular EUROMOD meeting in Athens.

Leonard Geyer: I joined the Austrian national team in 2020 and participated in the general training course. Unfortunately, due to COVID the course had to take place online and I missed the chance to meet the EUROMOD community in person.

Felix Wohlgemuth: My first contact was as a user and from an administration perspective. In 2016 as trainee at the Austrian Ministry for Social Affairs, I used SORESI - the Austrian web-based version of EUROMOD - for an impact assessment of a funding programme for social enterprises. Since August 2022 I’m part of the EUROMOD team at the European Centre and looking forward to work, adapt and apply the model for Austria and for cross-country comparisons.

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

Michael Fuchs: I’m responsible for the country report and the validation statistics. Given my long-lasting experience with the Austrian tax-benefit system, I’m always up to date of (planned) policy changes. For the Austrian team at the European Centre EUROMOD is very important for comparative analysis, networking, exchanging with JRC, other country teams and researchers. The Austrian online spin-off SORESI is very relevant for simulating the fiscal and distributive outcomes of planned or hypothetical policy changes for several Austrian contractors (e.g., Ministry for Social Affairs, Chamber of Labour, NGOs, etc.).

Leonard Geyer: My role is to support the annual update of the Austrian system and to work on research projects using EUROMOD. Such projects include a study on the development of intergenerational fairness in Europe during the economic and financial crisis for the European Commission as well as simulations of the costs and distributive effects of a job guarantee and an increase in unemployment benefits in Austria. In addition, I provided technical support for the update of the JRC EUROMOD Web Interface.

Felix Wohlgemuth: My main responsibilities are modelling policy changes in EUROMOD, updating the Austrian input data for SORESI and the SORESI-specific policy functions. I’m also part of several research projects where we apply EUROMOD and SORESI for policy analyses.

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

Michael Fuchs: In recent years, we simulated the fiscal and distributive introduction of a basic security for children in Austria and compared it to the outcomes of the existing tax credit family bonus. Furthermore, we carried out our second analysis of non-take up of minimum income benefits in Austria which was also published in Social Policy & Administration.

Leonard Geyer: As a comparative researcher, the study on intergenerational fairness was certainly my personal highlight because it allowed us to analyse the changes in the disposable income of different generations in the EU. Published in 2021, our results showed striking similarities across EU member states with 18–24-year-olds experiencing the strongest income declines in nearly countries.