This paper assesses Italy’s 2019 tax and benefit reforms, analyses hypothetical reforms and proposes a reform package that balances goals of reducing poverty, encouraging employment and fiscal sustainability. Using the OECD’s Tax-Benefit and the EUROMOD microsimulation models, it shows that...

This paper uses data from the American Life Panel to understand the determinants of well-being in the United States during the Great Recession. It investigates how various dimensions of subjective wellbeing reflected in the OECD Better Life Framework impact subjective well-being. The results...

This paper examines the impacts of recent Australian welfare to work reforms for low-income parents of school-aged children who had been in receipt of Parenting Payment – the main welfare payment for this group – for at least one year. Specifically, the reforms introduced a requirement to...

We estimate a model of labour supply and participation in multiple cash and in-kind welfare programmes. The modeling exploits a reform that affected U.K. single mothers. In-work cash entitlements increased under this reform but eligibility to in-kind child nutrition programmes was lost for some...

We provide new evidence that cash transfers following the birth of a first child can have large and long-lasting effects on that child's outcomes. We take advantage of the January 1 birthdate cutoff for U.S. child-related tax benefits, which results in families of otherwise similar children...

A key policy question in evaluating social programs to address childhood poverty is how families receiving unconditional financial support would spend those funds. Economists have limited empirical evidence on this topic in the U.S. We provide causal estimates of financial and time investments...

The chapter examines how the various dimensions of economic inequality between men and women are analyzed today. Beyond the gender wage gap—a central issue—and of course the still far from equal sharing of housework, the chapter also reviews research on gender inequality in access to...

Fiscal policy in the U.S. and other countries renders intertemporal budgets non-differentiable, nonconvex, and discontinuous. Consequently, assessing work and saving responses to policy requires global optimization. This paper develops the Global Life-Cycle Optimizer (GLO), a stochastic...

This working paper investigates the policy determinants of hours worked among employed individuals in OECD countries, focussing on the impact of taxation, working-time regulations, and other labour and product market policies. It explores the factors underlying cross-country differences in hours...

Finding a suitable balance of work and family life is not an easy task for parents who face multiple, and potentially conflicting, demands. Childcare policies play a crucial role in helping parents reconcile care and employment-related tasks. But inconsistent or poorly implemented policies can...