It has been suggested in the literature that taxes and subsidies play an important role in explaining the differences in working hours across countries. In this paper I test whether public programmes for family support play a role in explaining this variation. I analyse two types of policies:...

We exploit an exogenous health shock the birth of a child with a severe health condition to investigate the causal effect of a life shock on homelessness. Using survey data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study that have been augmented with information from hospital medical...

Housing security has long been recognized as an integral component of the economic, physical, and emotional health and wellbeing of individuals and families. The lack of access to safe and stable housing is viewed by many as an indicator of severe social exclusion, particularly for individuals...

Using a calibrated OLG model with several sources of uncertainty we find that the impact of ageing and of reform of social security upon the demand for housing and the level of owner occupation is substantial. The overall structure of household asset holdings – in particular the split between...

We study whether cultural attitudes towards gender, the young, and leisure are significant determinants of the evolution over time of the employment rates of women and of the young, and of hours worked in OECD countries. Beyond controlling for a larger menu of policies, institutions and...

If participation in the labor market helps to secure women’s outside options in the case of divorce/separation, an increase in the perceived risk of marital dissolution may accelerate the increase in female labor supply. This simple prediction has been tested in the literature using time...

What shapes the optimal degree of progressivity of the tax and transfer system? On the one hand, a progressive tax system can counteract inequality in initial conditions and substitute for imperfect private insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. At the same time, progressivity reduces...