Identifying the effect of differential taxation on portfolio allocation requires exogenous variation in marginal tax rates. Marginal tax rates vary with income, but income surely affects portfolio choice directly. In systems of individual taxation – like Canada’s – couples with the same...

According to Canadian taxfiler data, over the last thirty years there has been a surge in the income shares of the top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01% of income recipients, even with longitudinal smoothing by individual using three- or five-year moving averages. Top shares fell in 2008 and 2009, but...

This paper investigates the responsiveness of household portfolios to tax incentives by exploiting a substantial tax reform that altered after-tax returns and cost of debt for a large number of households. An extraordinary panel data set that covers two years before and after the reform is used...

Is there evidence that households adjust their asset portfolios just prior to retirement in response to a means-tested public pension? We address this question by estimating a system of asset equations constrained to add up to net worth. We find little evidence that in 2006 healthy households or...

Identifying the effect of differential taxation on portfolio allocation requires exogenous variation in marginal tax rates. Marginal tax rates vary with income, but income surely affects portfolio choice directly. In systems of individual taxation – like Canada’s – couples with the same...

This research attempts to figure out whether the wage distributions of Canadian wage earners have been moving towards or away from the flowing three ideals in the early part of the 21th century. First, there be a pattern of wage increase that is shared by a large majority of wage earners....

This paper explores the ability of a large set of RBC type models to explain aggregate US data by examining how well the rst-order conditions (FOCs) from each model t the data. Typically, the residuals from the FOC for hours worked are large in magnitude (more volatile than total hours), very...

The first-order condition (FOC) associated with labour in many dynamic general equilibrium models involves only current period variables. Residuals constructed from this FOC are inconsistent with aggregate US data in that they are very large and highly persistent. The persistence suggests that...

The Canadian federal tax reform of 1988 replaced a spousal tax exemption with a non-refundable tax credit. This reduced the "jointness" of the tax system: after the reform, secondary earners' effective "first dollar" marginal tax rates no longer depended on the marginal tax rates of their...

The goal of this project was to assist health system managers and policy makers develop policies and strategies to recruit and retain human resources in the homecare sector and have a satisfied, healthy workforce. The overall research question was: How do the work characteristics of homecare...