This paper explores the use of a loglinear tax and transfer function, displaying increasing marginal and average tax rates along with a means-tested transfer payment. The two parameters are a break-even income threshold, where the average tax rate is zero, and a tax parameter equivalent to the...

This paper investigates, first, how allowance for subsistence activities, or home production, affects the standard results in models involving the majority choice of the tax rate in a flat tax – basic income scheme. The paper extends the analysis of home production to choices regarding the...

This paper examines the discounting of money values in social evaluations using a social time preference rate (defined as the sum of a pure time preference rate and the product of the elasticity of marginal valuation and a growth rate). It is shown that this procedure can give a different...

This paper reports estimates of wage equations for groups of Australian workers, using pooled data from the Income Distribution Surveys for 1995 and 1996, the first two years for which continuous hours information is available for each individual. The problem of using the wage functions to...

This paper examines the implications, for overall social welfare and inequality comparisons, of using different definitions of the unit of analysis in computing summary measures. The units considered are households, individuals and adult equivalent persons. Comparisons are made of the effects of...

This paper describes microsimulation modelling in non-technical terms and explains what can be achieved with microsimulation modelling in general, and the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator (MITTS) in particular. The focus is on behavioural microsimulation modelling, which takes...

This paper considers the choice of linear income tax rate in both majority voting and social welfare maximising contexts. Although the basic problem in each case - of finding the most preferred tax for the median voter and the welfare maximising tax for an independent judge or decision-maker -...

This paper examines the use of the quadratic direct utility function in modelling labour supply behaviour. This function has been used in recent empirical studies of labour supply. Emphasis is given to the treatment of welfare changes, involving the derivation of the expenditure function. A...

This paper examines the generation of earnings distributions using a labour supply framework in which individuals face piecewise-linear budget constraints. The possible implications for the distribution of earnings within a population consisting of single individuals having a joint distribution...

This paper is concerned with the use of social welfare functions in evaluating changes. In particular, it considers suggestions that welfare weights to be used in comparing the gains and losses of different individuals (or other appropriate units of analysis), and a social time preference rate...