The inequality in pre-tax income increases in Norway in the 1990s, while the distribution of taxes is about unaltered. This means that tax progressivity has decreased in the period, as measured by summary indices of tax progressivity. This paper discusses to what extent this observed decrease in...

Given that structural labor supply models continue to play a key role in the process of policy design, it is important to validate their capacity to provide reasonable predictions of alternative hypothetical policy options. Comparing outcomes before and after a realized policy change (such as a...

Staatliche Instrumente zur Einkommenssicherung im Niedriglohnbereich durch 'Kombilohn-Modelle' existieren auch in Deutschland schon seit längerem und wurden im Zuge der jüngsten Arbeitsmarktreformen ausgeweitet. Aktuelle Reformvorschläge für Deutschland zielen zum einen auf die...

Does the timing of labour earnings taxation encroaches upon capital income taxation and individual risk-taking investment decisions, i.e. portfolio selection? This paper presents the results of a laboratory experiment that is, contrary to previous approaches, not restricted to the analysis of...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

In 2001 the German government started to promote the development of private pensions by means of special saving subsidies and tax incentives (Riester-scheme). That policy especially targets households with relatively low incomes. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel, we scrutinize the...

Procedures of revenue estimation of changes in the personal income tax are discussed. Using revenue estimates of the 2006 tax cuts in the personal income tax in Norway as an example, we show that estimates of costs of cuts differ substantially when different effects are brought into...

We develop and estimate a microeconometric model of household labour supply in five European countries representative of different economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Norway, Portugal and United Kingdom. We then simulate, under the constraint of constant total net tax revenue,...