This paper investigates the inter-temporal structure of implicit taxes that arise in unfunded pension schemes. We demonstrate that these tax rates are declining over the life cycle. Using German micro-data for men and married women we estimate periodic wage elasticities of labour supply in order...

If there is a means tested basic income for old age, households will tend to reduce precautionary savings to an inefficiently low level. This might serve as a justification for a public pension system. In a representative agent framework, indeed, the introduction of a compulsory pension s ystem...

This paper discusses the efficiency of a pay-as-you-go pension reform by introducing a child benefit in an endogenous fertility setting. In the model of a small open economy, higher fertility is associated with a reduction of lifetime labor supply. The optimum share of fertility-related pensions...

This paper studies the tax treatment of couples. We develop two different approaches. One is tailored to the analysis of tax systems that stick to the principle that the tax base for couples is the sum of their incomes. One is tailored to the analysis of reforms toward individual taxation. We...

We analyze how the combined effect of automatic stabilizers and discretionary changes in taxbenefit systems have affected the cushioning of income shocks in the Euro zone and the EU-27 in the period 2007-2014. We propose a new summary measure of the combined effect of automatic stabilizers and...

We examine the role of tax incentives, tax awareness, and complexity in tax evasion. We observe a specific type of tax evasion among business owners in Swedish administrative panel data, after the tax authority has approved all tax returns. For the period 2006-2009, approximately 5% of tax...

The dual income tax provides the self-employed entrepreneur with huge incentives to participate in tax minimizing income shifting to have more of his income taxed as capital income. The Norwegian split model is designed to remove these incentives, but it contains loopholes. The present paper...

This paper provides an efficiency argument in favour of progressive labour income taxation. When the consumer faces a trade-off between investments in financial and human capital, a proportional comprehensive income tax tends to discriminate in favour of human capital investments. This effect is...

This paper analyzes the sources of heterogeneity in legal tax avoidance strategies across individuals. Three conditions are required for a taxpayer to participate in tax avoidance: incentive, access, and awareness. Using rich Swedish administrative panel data with a unique link between corporate...

We develop and estimate a model of jointly optimal income taxes for different types of income. Compared to standard optimal tax formulas, optimal schedular income tax rates additionally depend on cross-elasticities between tax bases capturing fiscal externalities. We discuss two applications:...