Should two-band income taxes be progressive given a general income distribution? Weprovide a negative answer under utilitarian and max-min welfare functions. While this resultclarifies some ambiguities in the literature, it does not rule out progressive taxes in general. Ifwe maximize total or...

We analyze the following questions associated with flexible outsourcing under partlyimperfect dual domestic labour markets, where high skilled workers participate in firm’s profitvia profit sharing: How does the implementation of profit sharing influence flexibleoutsourcing? What is the...

This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-basedreform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently amuch higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity inmarginal payroll tax rates by...

What are the impacts of labor tax reform on wage setting and employment to keep therelative tax burden per low-skilled and high-skilled workers constant in the case ofheterogenous domestic labor markets, i.e. imperfect competition in low-skilled labor andperfect competition in high-skilled labor...

This paper examines the interaction between minimum wage legislation and tax evasion byemployed labor. I develop a model in which firms and workers may agree to report less thanthe true amount of earnings to the fiscal authorities. I show that introducing a minimum wagecreates a spike in the...

The main purpose of this paper is to estimate the size and the growth of Quebec’sunderground economy, and the corresponding loss of taxes for the government. Ourapproach is based on a method developed by Pissarides and Weber (1989) and extended byLyssiotou et al. (2004). The basic hypothesis...

As the link between tax compliance and tax morale is found to be robust, finding thedeterminants of tax morale can help to understand and fight tax evasion. In this paper weanalyze the effect of progressive taxation on tax morale in a cross-country approach – whichhas not been investigated...

How do different components of the tax and transfer systems affect disposable incomeinequality? This paper explores the redistributive effects of different tax benefit instruments inthe enlarged EU based on two approaches. Inequality analysis based on the standardapproach suggests that benefits...

Whether observed differences in redistributive policies across countries are the result ofdifferences in social preferences or efficiency constraints is an important question that pavesthe debate about the optimality of welfare regimes. To shed new light on this question, weestimate labor supply...

By inverting Saez (2002)’s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize theredistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal)social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time andshow great stability despite...