This paper presents the properties of optimal piecewise linear tax systems for two-earner households, based on joint and individual incomes respectively. A key contribution is the analysis of the interaction between second earner wage differences, variation in the price of child care and...

This paper analyses optimal piecewise linear tax systems for two-earner households, based on joint and individual incomes respectively. It models the interaction between wage rates and variation in child care prices and productivities as determinants of across-household heterogeneity in second...

The effects and optimal choice of policy instruments affecting the family (child benefits, taxes on child-specific commodities, etc.) are examined within the context of a household economics model with fertility choice. The simultaneous consideration of child benefits and commodity taxes in the...

Given that young children are under the control of their parents, if the government has an interest in either the welfare or the productivity of the former, it has no option but to act through the latter. Parents are, in the ordinary sense of the word, the government’s agents. They are agents...

In a model with endogenous fertility and labor supply three instruments of family policies are analyzed: child benefits, subsidies for external child care, and parental leave payments. We compare the impact on the quantity and quality of children, the secondary earner's labor supply and welfare....

We model choices between caring for an infant at home or through some market provision of child care. Maternal labor supply necessitates child care purchased in the market. Households are distinguished along three dimensions: (i) Exogenous income, (ii) the wage rate of the primary care giver and...

We analyse a model in which families may either be “traditional” single-earner with caring for the child at home or “modern” double-earner households using market child care. Family policies may favour either the one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash for care....

This paper studies the effect of child-care subsidies on parental labour supply. I use variation arising from changes in the municipality-specific supplement to Finnish child homecare allowance to identify the causal effect of subsidies on the labour force participation of parents. The variation...

The relationship between government and parents is modelled as a principal-agent problem, with the former in the role of principal and the latter in the role of agents. We make three major points. The first is that, if the well-being of the child depends not only on luck, but also on parental...

This paper investigates how mothers' decision to stay at home with young children affects their subsequent work careers. Identification is based on the introduction of the Cash-for-Care program in Norway in 1998, which increased mothers' incentives to withdraw from the labor market when their...