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

Manos Matsaganis: I am Professor of Public Finance at Polytechnic University of Milan. Prior to moving to Italy, I taught at the Athens University of Economics and Business (2004-2016), where I founded and directed the Policy Analysis Research Unit. Earlier I had worked at the University of Crete (1996-1999 and 2001-2004), at the Greek Prime Minister’s Office (1997-2001), and at the London School of Economics (1990-1993). I hold degrees from the Athens University of Economics and Business (BSc 1986), the University of York (MSc 1988), and the University of Bristol (PhD 1992). I have collaborated with international organizations such as the European Commission, the OECD, UNICEF, and the World Bank. I was a member of the Expert Group on Social Investment for Growth and Cohesion, on the invitation of European Commissioner László Andor (2012-2014). I was Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University (2014) and University of California, Berkeley (2015), Visiting Scholar at Boston University (2017, 2018), and Visiting Professor at University of Vienna (2019). I currently coordinate the Greek & European Economy Observatory at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy ELIAMEP in Athens (since 2021), and sit at the Advisory Board of the diaNEOsis foundation in Athens (since 2016), and at the Scientific Committee of the Feltrinelli Foundation in Milan (since 2022). My book “Who’s afraid of the welfare state now?”, written together with Anton Hemerijck (EUI), is due for release from Oxford University Press.

Maria Flevotomou: I am an economist at the Economic Analysis and Research Department of the Bank of Greece, where I work in the field of public finance in a wide array of topics ranging from the analysis of fiscal policy and government finance statistics to developments in the pension system and distributional impact assessment. Prior to this I worked at the UK Department for Work and Pensions (2000- 2004), where I helped develop a national dynamic microsimulation model for pension expenditure (PENSIM2). I hold BA and MPhil degrees in Economics from the University of Oxford, St. Catherine’s College (1995-2000) and a doctorate from AUEB (2005-2009), where I completed my PhD thesis on ‘Microsimulation for the Evaluation of Public Policy: A Tax-Benefit Model for the Greek Economy’.  

When and what was your first contact with EUROMOD?

Manos Matsaganis: I joined the Greek National Team over a quarter of a century ago (!), on the invitation of Panos Tsakloglou and Holly Sutherland, whom I had met while a PhD student at Bristol University, and a researcher at LSE, respectively. At that time, I was involved in policy analysis for policy making at the Strategic Planning Unit of the Office of Prime Minister Costas Simitis, and yearned for tools (like the ones I had seen put to effective use by Holly Sutherland and Tony Atkinson at LSE) that might elevate the policy debate from “gut feeling” to evidence-based. EUROMOD was the answer to my prayers.

Maria Flevotomou: It was in 2006 when, as a PhD candidate, I worked on updating and extending the Greek component of EUROMOD to account for tax evasion and non-take up. Although this was a long-term project, EUROMOD was easy to use right from the start and this made it very appealing to me. Under the guidance of Manos Matsaganis, my PhD supervisor at the time, I was able to see the results of our analysis on the impact of mortgage interest tax relief in five European countries by as early as summer 2006.  

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

Manos Matsaganis: My responsibilities within the Greek National Team are rather limited, partly because I no longer live in the country. Nonetheless, I do take active part in EUROMOD research, such as our current work on simulating the reform of unemployment insurance benefit in Greece. Also, as I live in Italy, I often work together with colleagues from the Italian National Team, for instance on the simulation of the effects of the recently introduced universal child benefit. Furthermore, I am involved in research in spatial microsimulation, which I am excited about.

As for my experience with EUROMOD, what can I say? For academic researchers interested in tax-benefit policy, especially those with a bias for prescription as well as description (like myself), the model has always been manna from heaven.

Maria Flevotomou: I am involved in the annual update of the model since 2014. More specifically, I am responsible for preparing the Greek input dataset, which is derived from the EU SILC survey. Currently, I am also involved in the policy update of the model.

My experience with EUROMOD stretches as far as 17 years back. It has been an indispensable asset for me throughout this period not only for completing my PhD thesis, but most critically for armoring me as an economist with a tool enabling the timely, informed and evidence-based analysis of fiscal policy.

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

Manos Matsaganis: It all depends on what you mean by ‘recent’ (and by ‘my country’). The finest hour of the Greek National Team was, of course, our work on the Greek crisis in the first half of last decade. Our analysis of the distributional implications of the austerity and the recession, produced in real time, and presented at workshops and conferences within Greece and elsewhere in the EU, made quite an impression, though alas their impact on decision making fell well short of our high hopes. Still, we did publish a number of articles in scholarly journals and chapters in edited volumes.

More recently, we did great work with Francesco Figari on fiscal welfare in Italy, published here, and now plan to take forward the bit on housing policies through the tax system, producing estimates of their impact at small area level (e.g. Lombardy, or even one day Milan) as part of our work on spatial microsimulation (in my case, in the context of the MOBI-TWIN Horizon project).

In Greece, I have already mentioned our work on simulating the reform of unemployment benefit, which raises interesting methodological as well as policy issues, and which we hope to present at the next EUROMOD annual conference in Seville.

Maria Flevotomou: Besides consultation for an upcoming unemployment insurance benefit reform in Greece, as mentioned by Manos, the Greek National Team participated in yet another very interesting project in the past year in collaboration with economists from the ECB, other central banks of the ESCB and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The project analysed the impact of the inflationary shock and the related fiscal policy response on the distribution of household disposable income in 2022 in six Euro area countries, including Greece. The timeliness and relevance of analysis has generated a lot of interest in academic and policy circles. On another note, as the policy scope stretched beyond standard income support measures it was a great opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the EUROMOD Indirect Tax Tool (ITTv4) extension, which we had never used in the past.