In the early 1980’s Australia had a highly progressive, individual based income tax and families received support for dependent children in the form of universal family allowances. The introduction of income tests for child support payments based on family income (now in the form of Family Tax...

This paper considers the potential for the cultural transmission of attitudes toward work, welfare, and individual responsibility to explain the intergenerational correlation in welfare receipt. Specifically, we investigate whether 18-year olds’ views about social benefits and the drivers of...

With many countries considering the adoption of a system of earned income tax credits, it is useful to analyze how different types of credits affect labor supply and earnings. This paper focuses on a 1999 reform to the UK tax credit system, which increased the value of the credit and reduced the...

We examine the case for maintaining welfare and income redistribution programs even when their adverse general equilibrium effects reduce total earnings of poor households. Using a Cournot model of intra-household decision-making, we show that even if welfare cutbacks generate large increases in...

Using unique information for a cohort of Australian youth, this paper explores the association between youths’ perception of control (i.e. locus of control) and three educational outcomes: (i) Year 12 completion, (ii) whether youth obtained an Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank (ENTER)...

In recent years, the US, UK and Australia have lowered tax rates on high incomes and expanded tax credits and family transfer payments that are withdrawn on the joint income of a couple. These reforms result in significant changes in the structure of marginal and average income tax rates. In...

We study food Engel curves among the poor population targeted by a conditional cash transfer programme in Colombia. After controlling for the endogeneity of total expenditure and for the (unobserved) variability of prices across villages, the best fit is provided by a log-linear specification....

The paper develops a new approach to measuring the impact of government cash transfers on poverty alleviation that takes into account endogenous reactions and consumption smoothing of households. We use the methodology to study the impact of changes in government cash benefits on poverty rates...

This paper studies the effect of top tax rates on inventors' mobility since 1977. We put special emphasis on "superstar" inventors, those with the most and most valuable patents. We use panel data on inventors from the United States and European Patent Offices to track inventors' locations over...

Private pension provision faces the challenging task of providing stable income streams during retirement. The challenge has increased markedly in the last decades due to volatile financial markets, falling interest rates and the withdrawal of employers and external insurers as risk bearers of...